Catholic Church Turns To Biglaw To Stop Child Sex Abuse Victims Act

By Kathryn Rubino
AboveLaw
June 1, 2016

http://abovethelaw.com/2016/06/catholic-church-turns-to-biglaw-to-stop-child-sex-abuse-victims-act/

Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan

When you sign up to be a Biglaw attorney, you probably know you’ll be asked to do things you may find unsavory. But the job isn’t about your conscience or personal set of morals, it is about providing the highest quality legal services to those who can afford the rates. But helping the Catholic church with its child abuse problem still might be a bit much.

The Daily News reports that, according to filings with the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics, the state Catholic Conference — the public policy voice of the church, led by Timothy Cardinal Dolan — paid Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker over $1 million between 2007 and 2015 for its lobbying services. The firm worked on issues related to “statute of limitations” and “timelines for commencing certain civil actions related to sex offenses,” as well as other issues such as parochial school funding and investment tax credits.

New York is considered by child abuse victim advocates as having one of the most restrictive statutes of limitations, and there have been numerous efforts to change that, though they’ve all failed to become law. The Daily News reports that with the help of their Biglaw big guns (as well as other noted lobbying and media firms, such as Patricia Lynch & Associates, Hank Sheinkopf, and Mark Behan Communications), the Catholic Conference has historically been able to fight off the effort to expand child sexual abuse laws.

The good(?) news for Wilson Elser is that they are out of that business, though it doesn’t look like it was their choice:

After several key people either left the firm or reduced their responsibilities, the Church did not renew the contract with Wilson Elser for 2016, sources said.

Wilson Elser, which was being paid $10,000 a month by the Catholic Conference, had no comment.

But the Catholic church knows the value of having a Biglaw firm on its payroll, and has engaged another firm for its lobbying efforts:

In its place, state records show, the Catholic Conference hired another prominent firm, Greenberg Traurig, which it is paying $6,000-a-month. The lobbyist from the firm representing the Church is Michael Murphy, who used to be an assistant counsel for the Senate Republicans.

The Child Victims Act is again being considered in this term of the New York Assembly.