Dear CEBC Members and Friends,

 

Please join us on Wednesday, April 2 for a unique public forum on “Watergate Revisited: The Ethics of the Lawyers” that will explore the role of government lawyers in the events leading up to the Watergate break-in, and the ensuing scandals and prosecutions, to examine how White House lawyers got themselves in trouble and how they dealt with their mistakes and to explore what lessons, if any, does history indicate were learned from these events, including ethical lessons of continuing interest for all.  

 

This will mark the first joint public appearance for two prominent Watergate defendants, John Dean and Bud Krogh, since serving together as attorneys in the Nixon White House more than 30 years ago, as well as their first public discussion of these events with former Watergate prosecutors Jill Wine-Banks and Charles Breyer. Confirmed forum speakers include:

• John Dean, former counsel to President Nixon, who pled guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice, and was the government’s star witness in the Watergate trial of former Attorney General John Mitchell, and former top assistants to the President, H.R. (Bob) Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. Dean is a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California, a columnist for FindLaw.com and well-known bestselling author of nine books; he is currently working on a book about the final Watergate trial for the University of Kansas Press. 

• Egil “Bud” Krogh Jr. was a Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, who was given the special assignment by President Nixon to be co-director of the secret White House investigative unit known as the “Plumbers”. He pled guilty to a deprivation of civil rights of another person in connection with the activities of that unit. Since Krogh’s readmission to the bar, he has spent the last 27 years practicing energy law and mediation in Washington State. He recently published Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices, and Life Lessons From the White House.

• Charles Breyer, U.S. District Court Judge, from San Francisco, served as a Watergate prosecutor on the Plumbers Task Force. It was at his Washington, D.C. residence that members of a shaken prosecution team gathered the night Nixon fired the first special prosecutor, Archibald Cox., best known as “the Saturday Night Massacre.”

• Jill Wine-Banks, Chief Officer, Education To Careers, Chicago Public Schools, was one of three Assistant Special Prosecutors to try the main Watergate case.  But she first entered the history books during a pre-trial hearing when she took Nixon’s personal secretary through a public cross-examination when Rose Mary Woods claimed she was responsible for the infamous 18 1/2 minute gap on a key secret tape recording Nixon had made of his first Watergate conversation with Bob Haldeman. Jill Wine-Banks showed that it was physically impossible for Ms. Woods to have erased the tape as she claimed. 

  

The forum will be moderated by former U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug, now with the Minneapolis-based law firm Fredrikson & Byron. There will be an opportunity for audience members to submit questions to the panel.

 

The event will be held on Wednesday, April 2 from 4 to 6:15 p.m. in the Schulze Grand Atrium of the University of St. Thomas School of Law located between 11^th and 12^th and LaSalle Avenue and Harmon Place in downtown Minneapolis. Parking is available at nearby ramps for a nominal fee. Please visit http://www.stthomas.edu/campusmaps/mpls.asp to download a Minneapolis Campus Map as well as driving directions and parking ramp information.

 

To register, please visit www.stthomas.edu/ethicalleadership. Seating is limited. Two hours of ethics CLE credit will be sought and lawyers seeking such credit will be charged $75. There will be a $25 charge for general admission. Students will be admitted for free. For more information, please call Chato Hazelbaker at (651) 962-4888.

 

The presentation, part of the Medtronic Business and Law Roundtable series of lectures, is being hosted by the Thomas Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions and the Center for Ethical Business Cultures at the University of St. Thomas. 

 

Please feel free to share this program announcement with colleagues whom you think might be interested in attending.  

 

We hope you can join us!