client; it maintained it had an obligation to represent its client zealously and not to disclose information harmful to its client. At the outset of the lawsuit, the government froze all the assets of Kaye Scholer. This freeze rapidly put the firm close to collapse. It made it virtually impossible to contest the government's action as the firm would likely not survive in the interim as clients and employees would depart. At this point Nussbaum was retained to represent Kaye Scholer. In less than a week, a settlement was reached which did not require an admission of wrongdoing by the firm and provided for a monetary payment over time which was covered by insurance. This enabled the firm to continue as a law firm. As a result of judicial salaries in New York being frozen for more than a decade (the legislature refused to raise judicial salaries unless its own salaries were raised and the Governor of New York refused to agree to legislative salaries being raised), Nussbaum represented the Chief Judge of the State of New York and the Judiciary of the State, without fee, in successful constitutional litigation ultimately decided by the state's highest court, the New York State Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals ruled that holding judicial salaries hostage to legislative salaries was unconstitutional. As a consequence, the Legislature and the Governor agreed to change the system for the compensation of judges. Since then, decisions regarding judicial salaries are made every four years by an independent commission rather than by the executive and legislative branches. Salaries of state court judges have been significantly increased to approximate the salaries of federal judges, which, before the lawsuit was brought, were considerably higher than state court judges. They are now roughly equal. On January 28, 2011, Nussbaum sent a letter to President Barack Obama stating that while serving as White House Counsel he extensively reviewed the Jonathan Pollard file. After pleading guilty in June 1986, Pollard was sentenced to an unprecedented life sentence for providing classified information to Israel without the intention to harm the United States. In his letter to President Obama, Nussbaum wrote: "Pollard has been appropriately punished for his conduct, and a failure at this time to commute his sentence would not serve the course of justice; indeed, I respectfully believe it would be a miscarriage of justice." After serving 30 years in prison, Pollard