Goldman Should Get Fair Shake From Judge Jones

Updated with additional commentary.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Goldman Sachs (GS) may have one thing on its side when it comes to battling a key regulator in court: A sympathetic judge.

Of course, sympathy is a relative term when it comes to the public interest vs. the banks these days. Yet lawyers and other courtroom players who have worked with Barbara S. Jones -- the judge handling the Securities and Exchange Commission's case against Goldman -- describe her as even-handed, fair, apolitical and no-nonsense. They say Goldman needs to worry more about how strong the SEC's legal case is, rather than any prejudice on her part.

"Each side here -- the SEC and Goldman -- are probably happy with the selection of Barbara Jones as a judge, and to me that would be the definition of a good judge," says Rob Friedman, one of several lawyers who echoed similar comments. "She's smart, she's fair, she runs a good courtroom and while she has a very extensive government background before she took the bench, she's certainly not going to rubber stamp anything the government does. She's going to handle things according to the law."

Judge Barbara Jones has a reputation as a middle-of-the-road arbiter who doesn't necessarily favor banks or the government.

Friedman dealt with Jones when representing Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. some years ago, when he worked at Kelley Drye & Warren. The case mostly involved activist investor Carl Icahn and American Airlines (AA), and he says Jones handled the proceedings in a smart, fair way throughout. Friedman is now a partner at Sheppard Mullin, handling business and white-collar cases, and says that though he hasn't worked with her in some time, Jones' reputation remains intact.

On TheRobingRoom.com , a Web site where lawyers and litigants can rate judges they have interacted with, Jones garnered an overall 7.4 out of 10 rating. Her highest scores were in even-handedness, punctuality, and involvement in civil-settlement discussions. Her lowest was in "industriousness" and her tendency to be pro-government or anti-government in criminal cases landed right in the middle: A perfect 5.

In a recent ruling regarding disclosures and conflict of interest, Judge Jones sided with the defendant, Morgan Stanley (MS), rather than the investors suing the firm. The investors claimed that Morgan Stanley hadn't disclosed all material information about its role as both a broker and a dealer -- the quintessential conflict of interest for securities firms. But Jones decided that the plaintiffs hadn't identified any legal basis that required Morgan Stanley to disclose more than it did in its offering documents. An appellate court upheld her decision.