ABA's White Collar Conference

So the ABA's big White Collar Conference is back at the Eden Roc this Wednesday through Friday.  Over 1000 lawyers come to schmooze, get CLEs, and to go to the parties at night all along Miami Beach. 

One party of note is at the Blues Bar at the National Hotel at 9:30pm where there will be the annual Steve Chaykin toast.  This year, the name will be changed to the Chaykin/Sharpstein toast....

In substantive news, both AG Holder and the Republicans are trying to get serious about sentencing reform.  From the NY Times:

Shortly after Senator Rand Paul filed suit last month against the Obama administration to stop its electronic dragnet of American phone records, he sat down for lunch with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in his private dining room at the Justice Department.

Mr. Paul, a Kentucky Republican, is one of the Obama administration’s most vocal critics. But their discussion focused on an issue on which they have found common cause: eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

The two men are unlikely allies. Their partnership unites the nation’s first African-American attorney general, who sees his legacy in a renewed focus on civil rights, and some of Congress’s most prominent libertarians, who have accused the Obama administration of trampling on personal freedom with drones, wiretaps, tracking devices and too much government.

While a range of judges, prosecutors and public defenders have for years raised concerns about disparities in punishment, it is this alliance that may make politically possible the most significant liberalization of sentencing laws since President Richard M. Nixon declared war on drugs.