The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri has approved the joint selection by The Department of Justice ("DOJ") and Ferguson City Council of Squire Patton Boggs to lead the Independent Monitoring team for the City of Ferguson, Missouri (“Ferguson”).
The firm's appointment as Independent Monitor is pursuant to a Consent Decree between the DOJ and Ferguson agreed to in March 2016 after a DOJ investigation uncovered a pattern and practice of unlawful conduct by the Ferguson Police Department and the Ferguson Municipal Court.
The Squire Patton Boggs team will be led by firm partner and former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of State Clark Ervin. The rest of the team approved by the parties consists of Samuel Rosenthal, who leads Squire Patton Boggs' Government Investigations & White Collar Practice and is the former chief of the Appellate Section of DOJ's Criminal Division; Ed Davis, former Boston Police Commissioner; Delores Jones-Brown, a professor in the Department of Law, Political Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College, City University of New York; Kimberly Norwood, a professor of law at the Washington University Law School; Frances McLeod, the founder partner of Forensic Risk Alliance, a forensic accounting and data analytics firm; Tom Maronick, a marketing, advertising and consumer survey expert who formerly held a senior position at the Federal Trade Commission; and Natashia Tidwell, a former police officer and federal prosecutor now at the law firm of Collora LLP.
Mr. Ervin commented, “We are honored to take on this important assignment at such a critical time in our nation.”
Under the agreement, Squire Patton Boggs will oversee the implementation of reforms to bring about constitutional and effective policing, promote officer and public safety, ensure fundamental fairness and equal treatment regardless of race in the municipal court and foster greater trust between police officers and the communities they serve.
Also, in May 2016 Mr. Ervin and Squire Patton Boggs were selected as the independent monitor for Zenith Education Group, a non-profit group that operates former Corinthian College campuses. Zenith Education Group, the nonprofit education arm of ECMC Group, acquired more than 50 campuses from now-defunct Corinthian Colleges Inc. in 2015 and transitioned the campuses from for-profit to nonprofit institutions. As part of the sale, Zenith agreed to a series of operating standards established by the Department of Education, including the hiring of an independent monitor.