Jeff (Skilling) Stands by His Dan

[WSJ Law Blog]

When oral arguments are heard Wednesday in Jeff Skilling’s appeal, the former Enron chief will be represented by the same lawyer who handled his trial, O’Melveny & Myers’s Dan Petrocelli (pictured, right).

It’s a bit of an unusual move. Lawyers say that a decade ago, it was more common for a high-profile defendant to use his trial lawyer to handle an appeal. But now more and more well-heeled white-collar defendants hire appellate specialists. “The audiences are very different,” says Latham’s Maureen Mahoney. “The goal of a trial lawyer is to advance broad themes to a jury. Appellate lawyers have to identify the legal issues that are going to resonate with appellate judges.”

Furthermore, says Mahoney, lawyers who join a case post-conviction often view it with a fresh set of eyes, much the way the appellate judges do.

Petrocelli apparently did get some help in the briefing from an appellate lawyer at his firm, Walter Dellinger (Click here for the mammoth brief.) And lawyers said that with a case as complex as Skilling’s, the arrangement makes some sense. “It’s a very complicated case and Dan knows it better than anyone,” says Larry Robbins, who successfully handled the appeal for one of the defendants in the so-called Enron Nigerian Barge case. “He’s an extremely highly regarded lawyer. I would have been surprised had Skilling chosen someone else.”