Nifong, Chemerinsky on list of legal newsmakers

What do ace constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky and fallen prosecutor Mike Nifong have in common besides a Durham address?

Each was a runner-up for the American Bar Association's lawyer of the year for making legal news in 2007.

Nifong won international notoriety for pressing a phony rape case against three former Duke lacrosse players. His name became synonymous with railroading innocent people and was entered as a verb in the Urban Dictionary. In courtrooms across the country, lawyers talked about "being Nifonged."

Chemerinsky, a Duke law professsor, was noted for being "hired, fired and hired again as the founding dean of the Donald Bren School of Law at the University of California at Irvine."

Despite their headline grabbing, the two Durham newsmakers could not compete with former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was the top newsmaker.

"The top legal story of 2007 was unquestionably the unraveling of support for the Bush administration's expansive view of presidential power during wartime, and with it, the slow-motion destruction of Alberto Gonzales' reign as U.S. attorney general," according to the January cover story in the ABA Journal, the flagship publication of the American Bar Association.

"Add to that the controversy over whether the administration fired eight U.S. attorneys for political reasons, and no single lawyer made more news in 2007 than Gonzales."

Others on the runner-up list include:

- David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and one of the most forceful advocates for expansive presidential powers during a time of war.

- "Michael Clayton," the anti-Atticus Finch movie character played by George Clooney.

- Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago and lead prosecutor of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff for Cheney.

- Monica Goodling, the former Justice Department staff member who admitted she "crossed the line" by using political criteria in her job of screening whom to hire at Justice.

n- The Lawyer Blogger, in a year when lawyers who maintain their own blogs became a force to be reckoned with in daily legal news coverage.

n- Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the highest ranking White House official convicted since the Iran-Contra scandal.

n- Howard K. Stern of the Bahamas, the lawyer for and companion of the late Anna Nicole Smith.

The magazine said it intended to spark lively debate with its list.

Read the article at www.abajournal.com/magazine/lawyers_of_the_year_2007_2008