Attorneys for Washington’s Public Figures Are Part of Elite Fraternity : Law: Most of those defending senators in the ‘Keating Five’ hearings have known and worked together and against one another for years.

It was a rare breach in the clubby atmosphere that usually prevails at Senate proceedings: Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) was accusing the special counsel in the “Keating Five” case of showing favoritism toward his home state Republican colleague, Sen. John McCain.

The reason: Aides say DeConcini suspected that McCain’s lawyer, John M. Dowd, had gained special treatment for him from the Ethics Committee’s counsel, Robert S. Bennett. Dowd and Bennett served in government together and have referred clients to each other over the years.

The relationship is “pretty cozy,” DeConcini charged last month.

But in Washington’s closely interlocking law community, the links between Bennett and Dowd are no aberration. Most of the lawyers defending senators who are being investigated in the Keating Five hearings have known and worked together and against one another for years.

The hearings involve charges that DeConcini and four other senators improperly interfered with federal regulators to protect S&L; magnate Charles H. Keating Jr. in return for campaign contributions.

The attorneys in the Keating Five case, on which hearings resume today, are part of an elite fraternity of defense lawyers in the nation’s capital who reappear in scandal after scandal, representing public figures of widely varying stripes.

Bennett and Thomas C. Green, who represents Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.), another Keating Five figure, have been close personal friends since the two were assistant U.S. attorneys here in the late 1960s, and have regularly referred clients to one another.

William W. Taylor III, who represents Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), worked closely with Bennett 10 years ago when Bennett was special counsel to the District of Columbia Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure. Taylor headed the commission as chairman.

At the same time, Taylor was Green’s principal assistant in defending Harry Rodgers, a private businessman and co-defendant in a corruption case in the 1970s against former Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel.

Meanwhile, Charles F.C. Ruff, who represents Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), was chief Watergate prosecutor and a U.S. attorney before becoming a defense lawyer. He crossed paths in those jobs with most of his fellow lawyers in the Keating case.

And James Hamilton, DeConcini’s lawyer, represented Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.), who was formally denounced by the Senate--and fined $130,000--last July for “reprehensible” financial dealings that “brought the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”

Bennett served as special counsel for the Ethics Committee in that same case.

Hamilton, most of whose public-figure lawyering has been tied to Capitol Hill, was assistant chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee. He later was appointed to an ad hoc bar association ethics panel--by then-chairman of the bar association, the aforementioned Ruff.

Dowd ran the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force 18, the only one of the elite multi-agency prosecution teams to have nationwide jurisdiction. Bennett and Green represented clients who were investigated by the strike force.

And Plato Cacheris, who is representing McCain aide Gwendolyn Van Paaschen, had a defense role in the so-called Abscam congressional influence-buying scandal in the 1970s, while Bennett served as special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the case.

Some critics--not the least of them DeConcini--have suggested that such intertwining relationships may be suspect, leading to special treatment for clients and bargaining among attorneys that goes beyond even Washington’s accepted norms.

But Cacheris says the bonds are no different than those in any other arena. “Any time you get a chance to refer a client to someone, you want to have someone you can work with,” he asserts. “We have worked cases together and have a mutual respect for each other,” he says.

McCain’s lawyer, Dowd, agrees. The trust among the public-figure defense lawyers “is the grease in the system,” Dowd says. “If they tell you they’re going to take a certain position, you believe them” and operate accordingly.

Earl J. Silbert, a former U.S. attorney here now among the public-figure defense clan, bristles at the suggestion that close ties with his colleagues might lead to ethical problems.

“Quite the contrary, it leads to an expectation of professionalism, responsibility and integrity,” he contends. “There’s enough room in this (lawyering) business for questionable activity” that knowing a colleague’s reputation for integrity provides some assurance, he says.

Cranston’s lawyer, William Taylor, argues that if anything, such cases can put a serious strain on friendships. “Defense lawyers have to be very aggressive in the interests of their clients,” he says, “--even at the expense of a long friendship.”

Despite their similar backgrounds, the lawyers who defend public figures here often display sharply contrasting styles.

At the Keating Five hearings, for example, Bennett pouts, curls his lips and tosses his briefing books on the podium whenever he is accused of being too prosecutorial.

Ruff seldom cross-examines a witness, content to sit in his wheelchair scowling at the prosecution.

Green, while brutally direct in cross-examination, frequently relies on humor to make his point. When a savings and loan regulator criticized his client sharply, Green drew up a list of 10 insulting mock questions and read them to reporters during a break in the tense hearing.

“The only negative aspect of being thought of as a leading defense attorney in this town is that some public officials don’t want to be seen with you,” Green muses. “They’re afraid people will say, ‘That guy must be in deep trouble.’ ”

But none of them is as consistently witty as William G. Hundley, a former Justice Department organized crime prosecutor who has honed the skill of representing public figures accused of wrongdoing.

During the Watergate hearings of the early 1970s, when many of the Keating Five lawyers cut their teeth, U.S. District Judge John J. Sirica gaveled for order and warned spectators not to laugh again while the White House tapes were being played.

Hundley was representing former Atty. Gen. John N. Mitchell during the cover-up trial. Recognizing the damage the tape was doing to his client’s defense, Hundley raised his hand to ask a question: “Judge, how do you feel about crying ?” Hundley asked.

Even the stern Sirica joined the laughter.

Staff writer Sara Fritz contributed to this story.