Inspector General Glenn A. Fine was named "Lawyer of the Year."

The newspaper said Fine's investigations into White House political meddling and mismanagement by former Justice officials has helped restore the fierce independence that was once the department's trademark.

"During a year in which the Justice Department's reputation suffered one black eye after another — largely because of politicization of a number of its functions — Fine and the team he has assembled in the past eight years emerged as beacons of nonpartisanship and independence," the newspaper said.

Fine's office released a number of high-profile reports this year, at least four of which criticized how former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales ran the department. A close friend and adviser to President George W. Bush, Gonzales resigned in September 2007 after months of criticism that Republican politics drove hiring and firing decisions — including the ouster of nine U.S. attorneys the year before.

Fine was nominated and confirmed as inspector general in the waning days of President Bill Clinton's administration. It's expected Fine will stay on after President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in.

Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP announced Wednesday that the firm has opened an office in New York City, its ninth location.

The move is aimed at strengthening the firm's existing real estate, employment, and corporate and transactional groups and attracting new corporate and municipal clients based in the New York metropolitan area.

"Nearly everyone would agree that New York is both the legal and business epicenter of the United States," Emery Harlan, partner of the Milwaukee-based firm, said in a prepared statement announcing the move. “As our firm continues to grow aggressively, expanding into New York was the logical next step.”

Key current clients in the area include Accenture, Limited Brands and Summit Business Media.

Philip Berg and Angela Dorn, formerly of Berg & Dorn Law Partners, in Manhattan, will join Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan as managing partners for the New York office.

Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan, one of the nation’s largest minority-owned law firms, has more than 75 attorneys in offices located in Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Des Moines, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Las Vegas, New York and Washington D.C.

Two of Dallas' most prominent law firms squared off in federal court Thursday in the high-profile case that has pitted heirs to oilman H.L. Hunt's fortune against each other in a nasty family fight.

But the skirmish was not to decide how the family funds should be divvied up. Instead, it was to decide whether the Bickel & Brewer law firm can represent one of the parties.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees could be at stake, and the courtroom was crowded with distinguished lawyers, including George Bramblett and Don Godwin, who have an interest in the case.

Some may have been looking for fireworks but got gentlemanly jabs instead as Mike Lynn of Lynn Tillotson Pinker & Cox, representing Al G. Hill Jr., asked the court to disqualify Bickel & Brewer from representing Al G. Hill III in the suit against his father and other family members.

Bickel & Brewer "chose to betray their own client" by filing a lawsuit against him, Mr. Lynn said as "Al Jr." looked on.

He described attorney Bill Brewer as "the most conflicted lawyer in the city of Dallas."

Neither Mr. Brewer or "Al III" attended the hearing. But Bickel & Brewer partner James Renard said despite hundreds of pages of filings in the case, Mr. Lynn failed to prove that Al Jr. was anything other than a witness in unrelated litigation, so there was no conflict of interest.

In a filing last February, Bickel & Brewer called the motion to disqualify its firm "transparently tactical in its effort to delay this litigation and increase the costs to Plaintiff."

The hearing is a byproduct of a suit filed last fall, by Al III against Al Jr. and other relatives, accusing them of conspiring to plunder two family trusts, one set up for his late grandmother, Margaret Hunt Hill and the other set up for his late great-uncle, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt Jr., known as Hassie. The trusts were begun in 1935 by oilman H.L. Hunt, once considered the richest man in the country.

The two trusts' major asset was Hunt Petroleum, which was sold to XTO Energy for more than $4 billion in June.