chevron-down Created with Sketch Beta.

    July 2021 Washington Letter

     

    Federal Government

    Long Awaited Bipartisan Legislation to Enhance Judicial Security Reintroduced

    Long awaited legislation to enhance the security of our federal judiciary and safeguard the personally identifiable information of federal judges and their immediate families was introduced in the Senate and the House earlier this month.

    This Month's Articles

    Advocates of the Month

    We are proud to honor Mark Fleming, Elizabeth Bewley, and Sofie Brooks as our Advocates of the Month for July 2021! They worked extremely hard to file the ABA’s amicus brief in Al Hela v. Biden earlier this month. Mark is Vice Chair of WilmerHale’s Appellate and Supreme Court litigation practice. Mark has appeared in more than 250 appeals and personally argued 52 of them, including six before the Supreme Court of the United States. He was part of the team representing six Bosnian men detained at Guantanamo, which led to the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush vindicating Guantanamo prisoners’ right to challenge their detention in court. Elizabeth is a skilled appellate litigator who has briefed federal and state appeals on issues related to constitutional law, administrative law, statutory interpretation, civil rights, intellectual property, and taxation, among other subjects. She previously clerked for Justice Elena Kagan of the Supreme Court and Judge Thomas B. Griffith of the D.C. Circuit. Sofie is an associate in WilmerHale’s Litigation Department, where she has worked on a wide range of criminal and other pro bono matters. She was previously a law clerk for Judge Stephen A. Higginson of the Fifth Circuit and for Judge Sarah S. Vance in the Eastern District of Louisiana.

    leg research tip

    Legislative Research Tip

    Law Library of Congress Legal Reports The Law Library of Congress produces detailed legal reports on foreign, comparative, and international law in response to informational requests from Congress and the courts. Over 1,000 of these legal reports are available to the public on the Law Library of Congress website from around the 1960’s to the present, and new reports are released periodically. Users can browse reports by topic, date and region or view all reports here.

    About the Washington Letter

    The ABA Washington Letter is a monthly publication produced by the Governmental Affairs Office to report and analyze congressional and executive branch action on legislative issues of interest to the ABA and the legal profession. The newsletter highlights ABA involvement in the federal legislative process and focuses on the association's legislative and governmental priorities and other issues on which the ABA has policy.

    Current Washington Letter

    Contact: Eric Storey, Director of Grassroots and Digital Advocacy, 202-662-1770

    Archive

    View the Washington Letter archive, which includes PDF versions of the Washington Letter from the 111th Congress to now.

    View - Here