Judicial Notice (08.25.24): Irreconcilable Differences

An injudicious judge, gun laws post-Brahimi, the breakup of Bennifer, and WilmerHale partnership news.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in happier times—February 2024 (photo by Lionel Hahn/WireImage via Getty Images).

Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here.

Last week was family-focused for me. On Tuesday night, we had a celebratory dinner for my dad’s birthday. On Thursday, I played hooky and took Harlan to Legoland. So I’m a bit behind on work (and apologize if I owe you a return call, text, or email).

My week was also podcast-focused. In addition to recording my own podcast episode with Judge Kevin Newsom (11th Cir.)—about which I’ve received an unusually high amount of (positive) audience feedback, thanks to my wonderful guest—I joined Sarah Isgur and David French on Advisory Opinions. We looked ahead to the next Supreme Court Term before turning to my novel, Supreme Ambitions, and legal fiction more generally—and I’ve been inspired to return to my neglected manuscript for a sequel, following some of my characters from the Ninth Circuit to SCOTUS.

Programming note: I might take off next weekend for Labor Day, then turn the first installment of Judicial Notice after the holiday into a double edition. But it will depend in large part on the news—to which we now turn.

Lawyer of the Week: Chris Morvillo.

One of the nation’s leading white-collar litigators, Christopher Morvillo, 59, was among seven people who lost their lives in the sinking of British software mogul Mike Lynch’s superyacht, Bayesian. At the time of my Tuesday report, Chris and his wife Neda were still missing, along with Lynch and three others—but their bodies were eventually recovered, confirming the worst fears of their families and friends.

What caused a 180-foot, $35 million yacht to sink, so close to the Sicilian coast, during a storm that a nearby 137-foot yacht was able to survive? Italian authorities are investigating, and there have been a number of detailed news articles—including this piece for The Wall Street Journal, “It Sank in 15 Minutes: How Tragedy Struck Mike Lynch’s Yacht” (gift link).

I’d now like to focus not on Chris Morvillo’s death, but on his life—including a distinguished legal career spanning government and private practice, Biglaw and boutique. After graduating from Fordham Law in 1992, he practiced at Weil Gotshal for five years, then served for six years as an assistant U.S. attorney in the renowned U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. After leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he practiced at Morvillo Abramowitz, the white-collar boutique founded by his father, before joining Clifford Chance in 2011.

Less than 1 percent of federal criminal cases end with an acquittal at trial—so the acquittal that Morvillo and his Clifford Chance colleagues secured for Mike Lynch, after a three-month trial in San Francisco, was a remarkable victory. For his win in the Lynch case, Morvillo won Litigator of the Week honors from The American Lawyer—and it wasn’t his first time. In 2018, he was Litigator of the Week for a precedent-setting victory before the Second Circuit in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case.

What struck me in the many tributes and testimonials to Morvillo over the past few days, however, was how many focused on him not as a lawyer, but as a human being—kind and generous, warm and engaging (which you can a sense of from the video footage of David Oscar Markus’s podcast interview). As Jonathan Etra of Nelson Mullins, who worked with Morvillo at Weil and then the U.S. Attorney’s Office, told Law360, “You just will not find a nicer or more loving or giving person in the law or otherwise. There are chat groups going on all over the legal community trying to fathom this loss.”

Chris Morvillo’s father, Robert Morvillo, was also an alum of the S.D.N.Y. and a legendary white-collar defense lawyer. But even though they were both talented in the courtroom, they were very different as people. As white-collar lawyer Ronald Riopelle told The New York Post, Bob Morvillo “did not suffer fools easily,” “was very tough,” and “had a bit of a temper and a hard edge.” Chris “didn’t have that”; he was “a fun guy” and “a nice guy,” blessed with “a good sense of humor.”

I never had the pleasure of meeting Chris Morvillo. But based on what I’ve heard about him, the words that come to mind are “happy warrior” and “mensch.” May he and his wife Neda rest in peace.

Other lawyers in the news:

• Judge Ada Brown (N.D. Tex.) blocked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ban on noncompete provisions—and the ruling (discussed in more detail below) was a nice win for a Gibson Dunn team led by Allyson Ho and Eugene Scalia, Law360’s Legal Lions of the Week.
  
  [UPDATE (9:23 p.m.): Sharing the honors: Charles Fillmore and H. Dustin Fillmore III of the Fillmore Law Firm, representing Ryan LLC, the plaintiff company, alongside Gibson; and Robert Sayles and Boyce Holleman of Bradley Arant, Jeff Wall and Judd Littleton of Sullivan & Cromwell, Jordan Von Bokern and Tyler Badgley of the U.S Chamber Litigation Center, and Liz Dougherty of the Business Roundtable, representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and associated intervenor plaintiffs.]
  

• St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey continue to battle over the fate of Marcellus Williams, a longtime death-row inmate. In the latest development, Judge Bruce Hilton will hold an evidentiary hearing related to Bell’s request to resentence Williams to life without parole (which Bailey opposes).

• Thanks to his representation of longtime client Delta in anticipated litigation over the CrowdStrike-caused global tech outage that crippled the airline for days, David Boies was the subject of a detailed profile in The Wall Street Journal (gift link)—featuring a great photo of Boies standing next to a giant gorilla sculpture.

• Dr. Jeff Shuren played a key role at the FDA in regulating medical devices. His wife, Allison Shuren of Arnold & Porter, represents makers of such devices—and Dr. Shuren didn’t recuse himself from certain matters in which he should have, at least according to an exposé published in The New York Times.

• Bank robber turned jailhouse lawyer turned Georgetown Law professor Shon Hopwood was charged last year with assault, in connection with allegations of domestic violence—and on Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. added two charges of obstruction of justice and five counts of contempt, for violating the conditions of his release. (Most of the case documents are sealed, which is why details are spare.)

In memoriam: Jerry Hernandez, 61, a well-known personal jury lawyer in Bexar County, Texas, was found dead in his home—possibly the result of a murder-suicide carried out by his wife. May he rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Kenneth King.

To make a rough analogy to the law of qualified immunity, consider the following to be “clearly established”: judges should not order the handcuffing of teenage girls who have not been convicted—or even accused—of any crimes. Judge Roger Benitez (S.D. Cal.) did that to a 13-year-old girl last year, and he was punished for it. So Judge Kenneth J. King of Michigan’s 36th District Court should have known better.