“Purdue Pharma Law Firm Builds ‘Ethical Wall’ to Shield Ex-Judge” —

• “Skadden, after hiring the judge who approved a $6 billion opioid settlement for its client Purdue Pharma LP, will bar him from matters involving the OxyContin maker and block him from company fees.”
• “There’s an ‘ethical wall’ between Purdue and retired Judge Robert Drain, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom said in a filing last week at the Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court. Skadden made the filing a day after it said Drain will join its corporate restructuring group in New York as of counsel.”
• “Drain in March 2022, three months before he retired, approved an opioid settlement conditioned on Purdue Pharma prevailing in an ongoing appeal of its bankruptcy plan. The plan was controversial because it gave broad protections to Purdue owners—members of the Sackler family—from future opioid suits.”
• “Under the New York rules of professional conduct, Drain is barred from working on any matter that he heard as a jurist. The rule also notes that judges cannot negotiate for employment at a firm arguing before him, indicating that talks between Drain and Skadden would have had to commence following his retirement.”
• “While Drain’s move to a firm involved in the Purdue case violates no ethics rules, it shows how narrow the ethics restrictions are, said Kathleen Clark, a professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.”
• “‘It’s not a great look, even though the rules allow it,’ Clark said. ‘Of all the law firms, Drain goes and works for one of the firms in one of the most controversial recent cases he’s been involved in.'”
• “Drain’s example is unique from other judges that have joined law firms because Skadden came under scrutiny itself during the case, Lipson said. Skadden and two other law firms in 2021 agreed to give up $1 million in legal fees to resolve claims from the US Trustee that they failed to properly disclose an information-sharing agreement between Purdue, the Sacklers, and their respective lawyers.”
• “Skadden said in a statement that the firm ‘complied with all applicable rules that enable retired judges to work at law firms.'”

“Clarence Thomas didn’t recuse himself from a 2004 appeal tied to Harlan Crow’s family business, per Bloomberg” —

• “Justice Clarence Thomas didn’t recuse himself from a 2004 appeals case, even though the company being sued was part of the real estate empire run by Harlan Crow, the GOP mega-donor who has showered Thomas with lavish trips starting in 1997 and more recently bought Thomas’ childhood home, according to Bloomberg.”
• “Thomas previously told Bloomberg that it was OK for him to accept gifts from Harlan Crow because the GOP mega-donor did not have ‘business before the court.'”
• “But the 2004 appeal ties the Crow family name to a case that did come before the Supreme Court: In January 2005, the court denied the appeal petition, a $25 million copyright claim brought by an architecture firm against Trammell Crow Residential Co., a development company that’s part of the real estate empire built by Crow’s father. The Supreme Court’s decision ultimately benefitted Trammell Crow Residential.”
• “Thomas is facing heavy scrutiny following a series of ProPublica reports earlier this month that said he sold his childhood home to Crow and didn’t disclose the sale, and that he’s been accepting pricey vacations from Crow — without disclosing them — for over 20 years.”
• “It’s not known whether Thomas would have made the connection between Trammell Crow Residential and Harlan Crow, who, at the time, had already begun to give Thomas gifts and trips, according to a 2004 Los Angeles Times report.”
• “But Thomas should have been ‘hypervigilant to the prospect of a Crow interest showing up on the Court’s docket,’ given their friendship, Stephen Gillers, a judicial ethics expert at New York University School of Law, told Bloomberg.”

“Head of a Major Law Firm Bought Real Estate From Gorsuch” —

• “Legal experts said that the justice’s disclosure of the sale, which came right after the justice’s appointment, did not violate the law but underscored the need for ethics reforms.”
• “One month after Neil M. Gorsuch was appointed to the Supreme Court in April 2017, he and two partners finally sold a vacation property they had been trying to offload for nearly two years. But when he reported the sale the next year, he left blank a field asking the identity of the buyer.”
• “County real estate records in Colorado show that Brian L. Duffy, the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, a sprawling law firm that frequently has business before the court, and his wife, Kari Duffy, bought the property.”
• “The buyer’s identity — and Justice Gorsuch’s decision not to disclose it — was reported earlier on Tuesday by Politico. The revelation comes as scrutiny on Supreme Court ethics and financial entanglements has intensified, prompting Democratic lawmakers to call for tightening the rules for justices.”
• “Justice Gorsuch did not break the law by omitting the buyer’s identity, said Stephen Gillers, a New York University professor and specialist in legal ethics. Under a 1978 statute governing financial disclosures, federal judges are not required to disclose who bought property from them.”
• “Gabe Roth, the executive director of Fix the Court, a nonpartisan group that presses for greater transparency and accountability by the justices, agreed that the omission did not violate the law. But he argued that Congress should pass legislation expanding what justices must disclose, including losses from any sales, the nature of partnerships that hold real estate and who buyers are.”
• “Mr. Duffy, who lives in Colorado, did not respond to an email from The New York Times. But he told Politico that he bought the property because he is a fly fisherman and that he has never argued before Justice Gorsuch or met him socially. He also said he did not know that the jurist had a stake in the property when he made his first offer.”