CHICAGO, Jan. 11, 2007 -- The Chicago-based law firm Butler Rubin Saltarelli & Boyd LLP has named Jason S. Dubner and Amy B. Kelley to the partnership, effective January 1, 2007. Both Dubner and Kelley joined Butler Rubin in 1999 after beginning their careers with major law firms.

Dubner joined butler Rubin in 1999 after starting his legal career at Jones Day in Washington. At Butler Rubin, he concentrates his practice in commercial litigation and arbitration with an emphasis on antitrust and reinsurance disputes as well as franchise and distribution counseling. Dubner represents companies in a variety of competition law matters - involving allegations of fraud, conspiracy and beach of contract. He also regularly advises clients on changes to their existing distribution networks and in opt-out antitrust litigation. A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, Dubner received his undergraduate degree in economics from Swarthmore College. He has also worked as an economic analyst - both with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and in the private sector.

Kelley joined Butler Rubin in 1999 after starting her legal career at Sidley Austin LLP. At the firm, she concentrates her practice in reinsurance and commercial litigation. Her reinsurance work involves major matters for cedents, reinsurers and intermediaries typically involving multi-million-dollar disputes. A graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, Kelley received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University. She is admitted to practice in Illinois and New Jersey, where she currently resides.

Formed in 1980, Chicago-based Butler Rubin has established itself as a well-known litigation boutique assisting clients nationally and internationally in the core practice areas of reinsurance and complex business litigation, including antitrust and legacy liability issues.

http://www.butlerrubin.com.

"The changes I have outlined tonight are aimed at ensuring the survival of a young democracy that is fighting for its life in a part of the world of enormous importance to American security," Bush said in a nationally televised address. "The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will."

Bush's optimism was immediately challenged by Democratic leaders, who repeated their opposition to increasing troop levels. Even some Republicans criticized the plan.

The president acknowledged previous failures.

"Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me," he said. Past efforts to quell violence in Baghdad failed, he said, because "there were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods" and "there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have."

He said his plan would remedy such flaws.

In earlier operations, the president said, "political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence."

"This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter those neighborhoods," Bush said.

The first US execution of 2007 took place Tuesday, when the state of Oklahoma executed a man by lethal injection for the 1992 murders of four people. The US Supreme Court denied Corey Duane Hamilton's request for a stay of execution and certiorari review on Monday, with Justices Souter and Stevens voting to grant the request. The Death Penalty Information Center said Hamilton is one of thirty people in the US scheduled to be executed in 2007. Death sentencing in the US hit a 30-year low in 2006.

Earlier this month, a New Jersey State commission recommended abolishing capital punishment in that state altogether, replacing it with a life sentence without the possibility of parole. If the commission's report makes its way into law New Jersey will become the first US jurisdiction to ban capital punishment in over 35 years. In December, Florida Governor Jeb Bush suspended all executions in that state after a lethal injection execution there was botched, and a federal judge effectively suspended capital punishment in California by ruling that that state's lethal injection procedure creates "an undue and unnecessary risk" of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution.

President Bush bowed this week to opposition from Lindsey Graham and other senators, declining to renominate the Pentagon’s top lawyer to the federal appellate court that oversees South Carolina.

Bush’s decision not to send the Senate the nomination of William Haynes to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledges new political realities with a Democratic-controlled Congress.

The decision also is a victory for Graham, R-SC, a military lawyer who opposed Haynes’ appointment because of Haynes’ role as Defense Department general counsel in formulating tough interrogation techniques for accused terrorist detainees.

In a Dec. 19 letter to Bush, obtained Tuesday by McClatchy Newspapers, Haynes asked the president to withdraw his name from consideration.

Haynes was one of four controversial judicial nominees Bush chose not to renominate. The others were Terrence Boyle, William Myers and Michael Wallace.

PELOSI BANS SMOKING IN SPEAKER’S LOBBY

Smokers may be one minority in Congress with even fewer rights than newly demoted Republicans. Now they’re losing one of their last, cherished prerogatives — a smoke break in the ornate Speaker’s Lobby just off the House floor.

New House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced a ban Wednesday.

“The days of smoke-filled rooms in the United States Capitol are over,” Pelosi said. “Medical science has unquestionably established the dangerous effects of secondhand smoke, including an increased risk of cancer and respiratory diseases. I am a firm believer that Congress should lead by example.”

Lawmakers will still be free to light up in their own offices.

HIGH COURT WEIGHS UNION DISPUTE

Supreme Court justices indicated Wednesday they are inclined to uphold a Washington state law restricting unions from using workers’ fees for political activities.

The case involves a few thousand teachers and other education employees who are in the bargaining unit of the more than 70,000-member Washington Education Association — but who have chosen not to join the union.

The Washington Supreme Court struck down the law, but several justices said Wednesday that the law did not strike them as burdensome.

Previous legal interpretations have said that active licensing contracts between companies essentially act as a "covenant not to sue," according to the American Bar Association. As such, the "actual controversy" required to have a case under the U.S. Constitution doesn't exist.

But in an 8-1 opinion yesterday - with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting - the court struck down that idea as "mistaken."

"Promising to pay royalties on patents that have not been held invalid does not amount to a promise not to seek a holding of their invalidity," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote on behalf of the majority. (Thomas contended the courts had no jurisdiction over the case because no controversy existed.)

Those who license access to patented technology may now decide it's more in their interests to try to have a suspect patent legally overturned. And patent holders may likely scrutinize potential partners more closely or charge higher fees to cover the risk of a lawsuit.

"Clearly, this will have some impact on how people look at licensing their technology," said Lawrence M. Sung, a professor and director of the Intellectual Property Law Program at University of Maryland School of Law.

"The difficult question is knowing how much of an impact there will be," Sung said.

For MedImmune, the opinion means a lower court will have to consider the company's original 2003 claim filed in California U.S. District Court. The case contends that a patent held by California competitor Genentech Inc. was obtained through improper collusion with a British biotechnology company and amounts to an illegal 12-year extension of an earlier patent.