By Mike Sacks, from Legal Times

Loretta Lynch sworn in Monday as 83rd U.S. attorney general.
Loretta Lynch was sworn in on Monday as the 83rd attorney general of the United States at a ceremony at the Department of Justice, which she vowed to lead “to even greater heights.”
In her remarks, Lynch said her role was to “not just represent the law and enforce the law, but to use it to make real the promise of America: the promise of fairness, the promise of equality, of liberty and justice for all.”
Vice President Joe Biden administered the oath while Lynch placed her hand on a bible held by her father, Rev. Lorenzo Lynch, and husband Stephen Hargrove.
“Ladies and gentleman, it’s about time. It’s about time this woman is being sworn in,” Biden said.
The Senate confirmed Lynch on Thursday by a 56-43 vote more than five months after she was nominated.
Lynch’s speech hinted that her priorities as attorney general will closely track the major issues she faced as as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York: from strengthening community relations with law enforcement and combating human trafficking to protecting cybersecurity and prosecuting terrorists.
Lynch said in her remarks:
“We can imbue our criminal justice system with both strength and fairness for the protection of both the needs of victims and the rights of all. We can restore trust and faith both in our laws and in those of us who enforce them. We can protect the most vulnerable among us from the scourge of modern-day slavery so antithetical to the values forged in blood in this country. We can protect the growing cyberworld and we can give those in our care both protection from terrorism and the security of their civil liberties.”

Before Lynch arrived, her staunchest advocate in the Senate, Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, chatted with Valerie Jarrett, President Barack Obama’s senior adviser, from their front-and-center seats in front of the podium. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. also sat in the front row.
Introducing Lynch, Biden reserved special praise for the newly former Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. “In this environment of political hostility, he has stood his ground, he has never yielded, and he has been right,” Biden said to Lynch’s nod and applause. “I have absolute confidence that Loretta Lynch will exceed the high standard set for her because she’s cut from the same cloth.”
If Biden articulated his and the Democrats’ hopes, they were also Republicans’ fears. Lynch’s purported similarity to Holder was largely why all but 10 GOP senators opposed her confirmation.
Holder delivered his farewell remarks at Main Justice on Friday, where he told lawyers and staff in the audience that he looked forward to “all that you will do under the great new leadership of a wonderful attorney general.”
IMAGE: Vice President Joe Biden, left, administers the oath while Attorney General Loretta Lynch placed her hand on a bible held by her father, Rev. Lorenzo Lynch, second from left, and husband Stephen Hargrove, second from right, at the U.S. Department of Justice. April 27, 2015. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ
For more on this story go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/id=1202724635648/Lynch-Takes-Helm-of-DOJ-Promises-Even-Greater-Heights#ixzz3YcIuP12d

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Eric Holder’s Long Goodbye
By Mike Sacks, From Legal Times
Holder, the attorney general since 2009, has finally left the building.
“Eric Holder is free,” the outgoing U.S. attorney general said Friday at the Department of Justice in his third and final farewell speech since announcing in September his plans to step down.
After throwing his own and several other “ Free Eric Holder” wristbands into the audience of lawyers and staff, Holder turned the phrase around to express his fealty to the Justice Department.
“I don’t ever want be free from this great institution,” Holder said. “I don’t ever want to be free from the relationships that I’ve forged with so many of you. I don’t ever want to be free from the notion that I am a member of the United States Department of Justice. This is something that has meant the world to me, it has helped define me as an individual, as a lawyer, as a man.”
Holder didn’t speak from prepared remarks, relying instead on a handwritten note with reminders, a department official said. His remarks came a day after the Senate confirmed his successor, Loretta Lynch, by a 56-43 vote 164 days after her nomination. Lynch, the first African-American woman to lead the Justice Department, will be sworn in on Monday.
In Friday’s speech, Holder praised his lawyers and staff for their work across all of the DOJ’s practice areas, from terrorism prosecutions and antitrust oversight to LGBT rights and voting rights enforcement.
Efforts to curb voting rights “animates me, angers me,” Holder said. “The notion that we would somehow go back and put in place things that make it more difficult for our fellow citizens to vote is simply inconsistent with all that is good about this country.” He applauded the Civil Rights Division’s lawsuits under “a voting rights act that was wrongly gutted by the Supreme Court.”
Holder also gave a nod to the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage cases set to be argued next week, and said that the fight for LGBT rights is “the civil rights issue of our time.”
On the Criminal Division, Holder said, “We have expressed faith in the greatest court system in the world and brought the toughest national security cases into that system and with unbelievable results. The notion that we’re still having a debate about whether or not cases ought to be brought in the Article III system or in military tribunals is over, it’s dead.”
The Antitrust Division “lives again,” Holder said, pointing to Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.’s abandonment under pressure from the DOJ and Federal Communications Commission over their plans for a merger that he noted “would have been extremely anti-competitive and would have not been in the best interest of the American consumer.”
Holder gave personal recognition to family and colleagues. He credited his wife, Dr. Sharon Malone, for being “the rock in the family,” thanked his security detail for their personal sacrifices to protect him, and singled out former associate attorney general and current PepsiCo Inc. general counsel Tony West for his work shepherding money recovered from the financial crisis to those most harmed by frauds that brought about the financial crisis.
But the speech was by and large directed toward those many Main Justice lawyers in attendance.
“Fifty years from now and maybe even sooner than that, people are going to look back at the work that you all did and say that this was another golden age,” Holder said.
After concluding his speech, Holder stepped down from the dais to shake hands and pose for pictures on his way out of the auditorium, down the stairs, through throngs of well-wishers, and, finally, out the door.
IMAGE: Departing Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. gives a final speech to Department of Justice employees, friends, and family at the Great Hall. April 24, 2015. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ
For more on this story go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/id=1202724539369/Eric-Holders-Long-Goodbye#ixzz3YWMmlJB8