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Washington, D.C., partner Betty Southard Murphy was quoted in an April 24, 2009, Law360 article, "High Court Won't Hear 1st SOX Whistleblower's Case."

According to the article, the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of a decision that a former bank chief financial officer who blew the whistle on his employer's allegedly questionable accounting was not protected by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, putting to rest the first-ever SOX whistleblower case. The high court denied a petition for certiorari filed by David Welch, former CFO of Virginia bank Cardinal Bankshares Corp. Welch became the first person to win whistleblower protection under SOX after he first filed his complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). The denial of certiorari means that a decision last August by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which found that Welch was not a protected whistleblower under SOX, will stay in effect.

Mrs. Murphy, who joined Cardinal Bankshares Corp.'s regular counsel in appealing this decision to the DOL's Administrative Review Board, praised the high court's decision in what she called a "landmark case."