smkohn

1) The most common misconception about attorneys is that a lawyer understands the complexities of whistleblower laws. The second is skepticism or hostility when a lawyer gives appropriate advice to settle a claim.

2) Attorney-client privileged as to Linda Tripp's communications with my office. However, given the level of misunderstanding as to her motives and conduct, and the effectiveness of the "smear campaign" waged against her and which hurt her and her family, I would be fully appreciative of any of her concerns regarding whistleblowing. However, what is lost in all the stereotypes and the media sensation, is the fact that a sitting president did not tell the truth in a sexual harassment case and the plaintiff in that case was denied due process. But for, the truthful testimony of Ms. Tripp, justice would not have been served in a major sexual harassment case with national implications. It takes courage to blow the whistle, but when you're blowing the whistle on the most powerful person in the United States with the most effective public relations apparatus, and you are an individual civil servant without access to the levers of power, blowing the whistle takes extraordinary courage. What Linda Tripp went through, and the difficult choices she faced, was lost in the political controversy and partisanship that flowed from her truthful disclosures.

3) Yes... Sometimes the lawyers for the defense full the belligerency and at that point they're to be ignored, or the deposition cancelled until the matter can be resolved. If the deponent is belligerent, that usually backfires and results in statements against interest. When the deponent responds emotionally, attacking my client, for having raised allegations, it's a good day.

4) I particularly like their song "Nights in White Satin."

5) No. Tort reform is a code word for diminishing the rights of victims of often horrendous misconduct or negligence.

6) I still recommend law school and am even trying to push my children to attend. The study of law helps to understand the workings of civil society in a wide variety of contexts and the development of the common law and the law related to the civil liberties and the civil rights of the people is worthy of deep appreciation and study, regardless of where one's career may ultimately end.

7) No... but, what else is new? That is why I like the practice of law where the pursuit of truth is at premium more than the practice of politics which is public opinion driven.

8) First, by having a reputation of aggressively representing whistleblowers for over 30 years. Second, by giving them and honest opinion about their case, regardless of how they may react. I see those communications almost like a doctor. The patient has cancer, it's terminal, that's the diagnoses. Promising "quack" medicine that's available in Mexico achieves nothing...

9) The Swiss banking scandals. There have been tens of thousands of US millionaires and billionaires who have hidden trillions of dollars of wealth that has increased the tax burden on the average American. This has harmed the economy. The extent of these harms is mind boggling. Furthermore, the vast majority of illegal secret bank accounts held in Switzerland and other countries comes from other nations and are often the result of illegal activities. This multi-trillion dollar network of illegal monies is an albatross around the neck of developing democracies, poor nations, and efforts to secure economic justice.

10) See the Linda Tripp case. Beyond the unrelating public relations attacks is the fact that high ranking government officials went into her strictly confidential, security clearance files, to find embarrassing information, and then leaked that information to reporters who profited from these willful, intentional, and criminal violations of the privacy act.

1) No. The bigger the better!

2) I have had whistleblowers who have raised concerns regarding officials whose politics would be aligned to my own. These whistleblowers could be perceived as helping one political party or another. However, I have not had difficulty representing these persons because, in my experience, the motives of a whistleblower are usually truth-driven. It is easy to take to politically endorse one party or another, it is a completely different set of behaviors which could compel an employee to risk their job or career to disclose a violation of law. So, consequently, we never take into consideration the politics of a disclosure, but focus on whether the whistleblower has credible evidence of wrongdoing. This non-partisan method of evaluating potential clients has served us well over the past 30 years.

Thank you for your comments. I don't think we'll reach an agreement today on this issue. Perhaps in the future.

No. There are some laws that are extremely good and do provide real protection. These are the False Claims Act (exposing fraud in government contracting and procurement) and the Dodd-Frank Act (permits the anonymous and confidential reporting of securities and commodities fraud and foreign bribery). Additionally, to a lesser extent, the IRS whistleblower law, which authorizes rewards for original information concerning tax fraud and the underpayment of taxes also is a valuable whistleblower law. These laws place a premium on having employees disclose strong evidence of fraud. In other words, the laws require that the employee and his or her attorney weigh the sufficiency of evidence that a fraud has occurred against the risk that all whistleblowers inherently face when considering making a disclosure. Furthermore, the compensation available to the whistleblower under this law is not predicated on damages flowing from the harm the whistleblower suffers when subjected to retaliation. The law is structured in a way to try to minimize the risk of retaliation. The compensation is obtained based upon the value of the information provided to the government. Under these laws, the whistleblower is entitled to a recovery of between 10-30% of the actual sanctions recovered by the government from the wrongdoer. It's a win-win for the whistleblower and the public. The whistleblower is encouraged to come forward when they have strong evidence and the strong evidence can be used to sanction corruption and, overtime, has resulted in the recovery of tens of billions of dollars from fraudsters, back to the American taxpayers. These reward-based whistleblower laws are now viewed as the most effective anti-fraud laws in the United States, and the large recoveries obtained under these laws proves this point.

On the other hand, there are large sectors of the economy for which there are no effective whistleblower protections. This includes national security whistleblowers. This also includes other matters for which there's no federal whistleblower protection, such as, blowing the whistle on poor healthcare or campaign finance violations. We strongly believe in the enactment of a national whistleblower protection act that would close the loopholes in current protection and be modeled on the best practices in the False Claims and Dodd-Frank acts.

What is lost in the partisanship that surrounded Linda Tripp's disclosures is the simple fact that there was a federal legal ongoing proceeding for which all persons involved were required to testify truthfully. That would include the president of the United States. When a person has direct evidence that false statements were made by a witness in a federal proceeding, it is their duty to step forward to ensure there is no miscarriage of justice. Those who blame Linda Tripp for the scandals that followed her disclosures should take heed of the simple statement made by Samuel Beckett in his play "Waiting for Godot:" to paraphrase, "just like man, blaming the shoes for the faults of the feet." My own assessment of the case, which is not relevant to the actions of Ms. Tripp, is as follows... The US Supreme Court ruled, I believe unanimously and correctly, that a sitting president is not above the law and would have to respond to allegations made in a properly filed civil rights lawsuit. It would have been my recommendation to the president at that time to settle the lawsuit in the interests of the country, as it benefits no one for the president to be distracted by litigation while trying to run the country. Instead, the president hired an extremely aggressive attorney and attempted to wage a "scorched earth" type of defense. This was a terrible mistake. I would never have permitted a sitting president to be deposed, let alone to commit perjury in said deposition. The American public would have fully understood why the case was settled in order to avoid those circumstances. But once the president went down the road of aggressive litigation, the Pandora's Box that often underlies litigation, was opened. There were no winners, except that the plaintiff in that case was ultimately able to receive a settlement and that false testimony was sanctioned by the court.