Peek-a-boo!

Above is the official Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher portrait of Debra Wong Yang, taken right after they bought her off hired her away from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Central California for $1.5 million, just as she was working on a big case against a Republican congressman that they were coincidentally defending.

Though this ethically-challenged but well-paid attorney may take quite a fetching class portrait, most of the gossips over at the Above the Law blog had a different take on it:

“I like the pictures on the main directory. Those are the best part. Except that they don’t have too many women, and one of the women is in a very high school girl peek-a-boo around the brick wall pose. They’d never put up a picture of a man doing that.”

“I agree… Shame on you, peek-a-boo posing Asian woman!”

“Uh, that ‘peek-a-boo posing Asian woman’ is Debra Yang, the former U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, whom GDC allegedly paid a $1 mil signing bonus. She can peek-a-boo around whatever the hell she wants to peek-a-boo around.”

“Debra Yang’s picture’s been taken down.”

“Wait, the peek-a-boo is still there. Now spotted in the mix over at Practices. Please, GDC, put up a different picture of Ms. Yang.”

 

This is the same high-priced Republican attorney that Dennis Barlow convinced our city council to allocate up to a million dollars for, in a special legal deal that contracts her only to him and not to Burbank or the city council itself.

That’s right– Wong Yang answers only to the city attorney- an interesting state of affairs that allows all sorts of monkey business to go on unaccounted for and un-monitored by anyone else but the Barlow. Call it attorney-client privilege extraordinaire.

Yesterday’s Los Angeles Daily Journal had an interesting take on Wong Yang’s latest ethical dilemma:

LOS ANGELES – After police officers arrested sports television commentator Jay Mariotti for battering his girlfriend in the lobby of her Venice apartment this past summer, he hired Gibson Dunn & Crutcher’s Debra Wong Yang.

Best known as the former U.S. Attorney for the Central District, Yang seemed an unusual choice to help the former ESPN commentator fend off potential felony charges related to the police investigation.

Her work on the case raised eyebrows not only because Yang typically defends white-collar corporate clients, but also in light of the exclusive civic title she holds – that of Los Angeles Police Department commissioner.

Charged with overseeing the police department, Yang and her four appointed colleagues participate in the decision to hire or fire a new police chief; hold sway over various department policies; and have uncommon access to top police figures.

For all of those reasons, legal ethics experts said, having a police commissioner represent an individual investigated by the LAPD could lead to conflicts between her duty to city residents and her duty to represent the client aggressively.

Mariotti pleaded no contest last week to a single misdemeanor count of battery and escaped doing prison time. Both Yang and the Los Angeles city attorney’s office contend the deal was routine and that no special treatment was at play.

But attorneys and governmental experts questioned why a high-powered commissioner would risk the appearance of impropriety for a relatively modest case.

[...]

Richard Teafink, the LAPD Commission’s executive director, said he could not recall another instance where the situation arose.

No formal rules prohibit commissioners from taking criminal cases or require disclosure, according to Deputy City Attorney Debra Gonzales. The closest thing is a municipal law that prohibits individuals from using public positions for private benefit, Gonzales said.

Yang declined to comment on why she accepted the client and said she was not required to make a public disclosure about the case.

Responding to questions in an e-mail, Yang said that representing Mariotti did not create any conflict between her dual roles, because the police had only “a ministerial role,” and their conduct “was never part of Mr. Mariotti’s concern.”

This, by the way, is an interesting cop-out (no pun intended), and it’s also not true. The LAPD were more than ministerial here; they developed the case, investigated the evidence, and then handed it over to the city attorney for a recommended prosecution.

“I think the disclosure rules in place are sufficient to catch any issues, which never arose in this situation,” Yang said.

That’s an interesting rationale too, that as long as it’s disclosed then somehow it’s not unethical unless it is. The main reason she was caught, too, is because she made an early public statement on the guy, not because her law firm disclosed her participation:

That the police role was minimal in the case stands in contrast to her public campaign on behalf of her client just weeks before, when Yang called the assault allegations “inaccurate and sensationalized,” and said Mariotti was escorting the victim home for her safety.

The girlfriend’s lawyer, Leonard Levine, said Mariotti socked her in the face hard enough to leave a bruise, broke her cell phone and pulled her hair. It was a bystander in the lobby who witnessed the attack that finally called the police, Levine said.

How do you spell F-I-X-E-R ? Do you use dollar signs?

Richard Drooyan, a Munger Tolles & Olson partner who practices criminal law and has sat on the commission for six months, said he has not represented any clients investigated by the LAPD during his tenure. Michael Yamaki, a criminal law attorney and former commissioner, recused himself from LAPD cases.

“I remember that was kind of standard,” Yamaki said.

Ah yes, in those quaint, old days of yore. Hope Burbank’s Dennis Barlow’s getting its moneys worth.