Brooke Fineberg was in her last year of law school at George Washington University in 2009 when she got an offer to work for a law firm, but she would have to do some pro bono work until starting in the fall of 2010. She called a law school classmate who was working as a special assistant at the D.C. attorney general’s office. “Great job,” he said. She applied and landed one of the coveted gigs.
“I was really interested in doing government work,” she tells me. “Luckily, my firm considered the attorney general’s office pro bono.”
So the firm — Kelley, White & Case — paid her a stipend, and Fineberg dove right into civil litigation cases for D.C.
“It was a win-win for everyone,” says Fineberg, 28. “It’s the ultimate skill-building experience for a young lawyer. And D.C. gets free labor.”
The special assistant program is the brainchild of Peter Nickles. The outgoing attorney general appealed to local law schools and law firms to attract interns and legal fellows who would donate their time to D.C. cases. And they did — by the hundreds.
“It was a great success,” he says, “for the kids and for the city.”
Everyone in D.C.’s chattering classes has a Peter Nickles story; few are flattering, let alone complimentary. Nickles left Mayor-elect Vince Gray sputtering more than a few times at the way he protected the executive branch. Mary Cheh, a lawyer and Ward 3 council member, opposed Nickles’ nomination because of his “lack of independence, legal temperament and questionable dedication to the rule of law.” She lost; he won the job and had it for three years.
Nickles, 72, knew he was out of a job as soon as Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his re-election bid; no way Gray would keep him. On his way out, he had a few choice words for his enemies, listed a few victories, admitted some defeats.
“Adrian and I were a great team,” he says. “I didn’t mind taking the heat. It’s been a blast.”
He blasts “advocates” and “masters” for agencies under court control as “a class of vested interests who are ripping the city off.” He must admit, of course, that he failed to convince judges that the city was ready to take back control of various social service agencies still under court control.
“I was the darling of the advocates when I was one of them,” he says. “Now they hate me.”
He sees the city’s takeover of the United Medical Center in Southeast as a major win and says, “If the city continues to exercise strict scrutiny, it can be a success.”
One of his biggest failures was the inability to rein in Medicaid expenses; the city loses about $200 million a year by not properly processing reimbursement requests from the federal government, he says. “We need outside help,” he says. “No one would listen to me.”
Will anyone listen to Irvin Nathan, Gray’s nominee for attorney general? And will Nathan continue to attract young associates, such as Brooke Fineberg?
Answers coming in 2011.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
