A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching the law and giving legal opinions.
The Iraq disarmament crisis was claimed as one of primary issues that led to the multinational invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003.
In the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth realms, a King's Counsel is a senior trial lawyer appointed by the monarch of the country as a 'Counsel learned in the law'. When the reigning monarch is a woman, the title is called Queen's Counsel (QC).
Andrew Turnbull, Baron Turnbull, is a British politician and civil servant who served as the head of Her Majesty's Civil Service and Cabinet Secretary between 2002 and 2005, when he was succeeded by Sir Gus O'Donnell. He now sits in the House of Lords as a crossbencher.
John Choon Yoo is a South Korean-born American legal scholar and former government official who serves as the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Yoo became known for his legal opinions concerning executive power, warrantless wiretapping, and the Geneva Conventions while serving in the George W. Bush administration, during which he was the author of the controversial "Torture Memos" in the War on Terror.
The Downing Street memo, sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the smoking gun memo, is the note of a 23 July 2002 secret meeting of senior British government, defence and intelligence figures discussing the build-up to the war, which included direct reference to classified United States policy of the time. The name refers to 10 Downing Street, the residence of the British prime minister.
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1931 by Eli Whitney Debevoise and William Stevenson, the firm was originally named “Debevoise, Plimpton & McLean”. Debevoise specializes in private equity, financial services transactions, private funds, and international arbitration. In 2021, the firm assisted the Democratic Party in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
In law, a legal opinion is in certain jurisdictions a written explanation by a judge or group of judges that accompanies an order or ruling in a case, laying out the rationale and legal principles for the ruling.
Elizabeth Susan Wilmshurst, Distinguished Fellow of the International Law Programme at Chatham House, and Professor of International Law at University College London, is best known for her role as Deputy Legal Adviser at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The legality of the Iraq War is a contested topic that spans both domestic and international law. Political leaders in the US and the UK who supported the invasion of Iraq have claimed that the war was legal. However, legal experts and other world leaders have argued that the war lacked justification and violated the United Nations charter.
Eric R. Dinallo is a partner and chair of the insurance regulatory practice at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and a member of the firm's Financial Institutions and White Collar & Regulatory Defense Groups. Formerly Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Counsel at The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, Inc. Formerly Superintendent of Insurance for New York State, he was nominated by Governor Eliot Spitzer and confirmed by the New York State Senate on April 18, 2007, as the 39th Superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department. On May 28, 2009, he announced his resignation and subsequently left state government service to become a visiting professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. On August 24, 2009, Dinallo announced that he was preparing for a possible campaign for the elected office of New York State Attorney General. He was defeated in the primary on September 14, 2010, by Eric T. Schneiderman, who went on to win the office in the general election.
Jack Landman Goldsmith III is an American legal scholar. He serves as the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he has written extensively in the fields of international law, civil procedure, federal courts, conflict of laws, and national security law. Writing in The New York Times, Jeffrey Rosen described him as being "widely considered one of the brightest stars in the conservative legal firmament".
The Iraq Inquiry was a British public inquiry into the nation's role in the Iraq War. The inquiry was announced in 2009 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and published in 2016 with a public statement by Chilcot.
A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed in August 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. They advised the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Department of Defense, and the President on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques—mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation, binding in stress positions, and waterboarding—and stated that such acts, widely regarded as torture, might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the "War on Terror".
Francis Taylor Pearsons Plimpton was an American diplomat, New York City lawyer, partner at the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton and a president of the New York City Bar Association.
Warren Neil Eggleston is an American lawyer who served as the White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. Eggleston was the fourth person to hold this post during the Obama administration.
David W. Rivkin is an independent arbitrator affiliated with Arbitration Chambers. For more than 40 years, Mr. Rivkin practiced private and public international law at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where he served as co-chair of its International Dispute Resolution Group for more than 20 years and was a founder of its Business Integrity/ESG Group. He now serves as a full-time arbitrator and mediator, focusing on complex international commercial arbitrations and investor-state disputes.
Robert Brandt von Mehren was an American lawyer. As a young lawyer in 1949, he participated in the Hiss-Chambers Case, and later became a leading expert in international arbitration in a career spent at the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton.
Andrew J. Ceresney is an American lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton and a former government official who served as director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement.
