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Law Firms

Paul Weiss leader cites potential ‘existential crisis’ as 1 reason for Trump deal; critics include 141 firm alumni

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 24, 2025, 1:49 pm CDT

An executive order targeting Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison “could easily have destroyed our firm,” the law firm’s chairman, Brad Karp, told employees in a March 23 statement defending the deal that he reached with President Donald Trump.

Karp’s message, printed by Original Jurisdiction, said Paul Weiss was facing an “existential crisis” as a result of a March 14 executive order by Trump. The order had suspended security clearances held by people at the firm, restricted their access to government buildings, required government contractors to disclose whether they do business with the firm, and required agencies to take steps to terminate contracts with Paul Weiss or its clients.

The executive order is being revoked as a result of the deal, Trump announced in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, March 20. According to Trump, the deal provides that Paul Weiss:

  • Will not deny representation to clients because of lawyers’ personal political views.

  • Will take on a wide variety of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints.

  • Will dedicate $40 million in pro bono legal services “to support the administration’s initiatives, including: assisting our nation’s veterans, fairness in the justice system, the president’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and other mutually agreed projects.”

  • “Affirms its commitment to merit-based hiring, promotion and retention and will not adopt, use or pursue any DEI policies.”

Karp sent a copy of the agreement to firm employees that differs from Trump’s description, the New York Times reports. Karp’s version does not mention DEI, but it did affirm a commitment to merits-based employment practices and to hire an outside expert to audit those practices.

Karp also said under the agreement, “the administration is not dictating what matters we take on, approving our matters or anything like that.”

The Truth Social post also quoted a White House statement that said Karp had “acknowledged the wrongdoing of former Paul Weiss partner Mark Pomerantz,” who worked on a criminal case against Trump while he was with the New York district attorney’s office. But Karp’s copy of the agreement did not mention Pomerantz, who has denied doing anything wrong, according to the New York Times.

Karp negotiated the agreement just a few months after suffering a heart attack, the New York Times reports in another article. The deal was supported by “the vast majority” of the firm’s partners, the New York Times said, which relied on anonymous sources.

Karp said he was initially “hopeful that the legal industry would rally to our side” after Trump issued the executive order. Instead “certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys,” he said.

Paul Weiss initially planned to challenge the executive order in a lawsuit, but it soon became clear that a successful legal challenge “would not solve the fundamental problem, which was that clients perceived our firm as being persona non grata with the administration,” Karp said. In reaching a deal, Karp said, “we were guided by our obligation to protect our clients’ interests” and the need to ensure that the firm would survive.

Critics of the deal include 141 Paul Weiss alumni who signed a March 24 letter protesting the firm’s decision, according to a March 24 press release.

“We expected the firm to be a leader in standing up for the legal profession, the adversary system and the right to counsel,” the letter said. “Instead of a ringing defense of the values of democracy, we witnessed a craven surrender to, and thus complicity in, what is perhaps the gravest threat to the independence of the legal profession since at least the days of Sen. Joseph McCarthy.”

Taking the other side is Stephen Gillers, a professor at the New York University School of Law, who told Law.com that Paul Weiss “had no obligation to fight Trump in court.”

The firm “has obligations to its clients, who must deal with the federal government regularly as an adversary or a regulator, and to its thousands of employees, including lawyers,” he said.

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A Florida judge on Monday was primed to sentence a 55-year-old man to 20 years in prison for allegedly shooting his ex-fiancee eight times as she lay on the couch. But then the judge heard the alleged victim’s testimony.

Bridget Knighton spoke of the “countless assaults” before the shooting, a courtroom report from Miami ABC affiliate WPLG stated. How the suspect, Gayle Blount, allegedly prevented her from answering the door when the cops would arrive during prior domestic violence incidents, threatening to blow her “brains out” if she “even uttered a sound.” The time he slammed her on a table full of dishes and food at Denny’s. All the times he ignored the restraining order, showing up at her apartment several times leading up to the shooting.

More from Law&Crime: Ex-boyfriend who threw mother of 2 ‘out with the trash’ charged with murder after ‘large crime scene’ found: Police

“Those restraining orders are just a piece of paper,” Knighton reportedly said. “They don’t stop a bullet.”

In May 2021, Knighton was on her couch in her Miami Gardens apartment when Blount allegedly grabbed a gun from a car, barged into the home and shot her eight times. He reportedly told her “Look what you made me do.”

As a result, Knighton has had to undergo some 11 surgeries and suffers from other health problems. She also must walk with a cane.

Blount has sat in a Miami-Dade County jail cell for nearly four years. Last month Blount and prosecutors came to a plea deal where he would plead guilty to attempted murder in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence. But Knighton reportedly testified that she felt the punishment was not stiff enough for all the terror he allegedly put her through.

“1000-lb Sisters” reality TV star Amy Slaton Halterman admitted to drug charges stemming from her arrest at a drive-through safari park in Tennessee, where deputies found her in a car with marijuana, mushrooms and her two kids after she called police to report a camel bit her.

As part of the plea deal, she and her co-defendant, Brian Scott Lovvorn, were sentenced on Thursday to two years probation, ordered to pay $1,000 and were barred from the Tennessee Safari Park. A felony marijuana charge was reduced to simple possession, and two child neglect charges were dismissed.

My high school trigonometry teacher was, by his own admission, “old school.” He didn’t allow us to use calculators. Ever. Instead, all decimals had to be divided by hand, all formulas known by memory, and all square roots worked out on paper. We were unlikely to walk around with calculators when we got older, he explained, and so we had to be able to work things out with only a pencil and our brain.

I am older now, and he turned out to be right—at least in a limited way. I don’t always walk around with a calculator on me. I walk around with two: one on my smartphone and one on my smartwatch. Add the laptop that is nearly always within reach and the various devices carried by my peers, and it is a rare moment when I am not within 5 feet of an abundance of calculating devices. I wish my teacher was still alive to see it.

As a law professor, I think a lot about my trigonometry class as I prepare to teach each semester. I am trying to prepare my student for the practice of law in the best ways I know how. But I worry that I, too, am making what I have deemed “the calculator mistake.”

The reality of law practice will likely be significantly different in 10 years. Will what I teach now be helpful and relevant to my students then? What does it mean to practice law well when generative artificial intelligence can already generate a mediocre legal brief, and online automated legal services can provide people with a basic will in seconds?

There are two ways to deal with this kind of uncertainty. The first is denial and hostility. Legal news outlets have been filled with articles in recent months about the problems with AI-generated legal briefs. Such briefs may contain fake citations. They miss important points. They lack nuance.

The obvious solution, when the problem is framed in this way, is to point lawyers away from using AI, impose strong sanctions on attorneys who misuse it, and redouble law school exam security and anti-plagiarism measures to ensure that law students are strongly disincentivized from using these new forms of technology. “Old school” law practice and legal teaching techniques, in this view, should continue to be the gold standard of our profession.

The problem, of course, is that technology gets better and does so at an increasingly (and sometimes alarmingly) rapid rate. No lawyer worth their salt would dare turn in an AI-generated legal brief now, given the issues listed above and the potential consequences. But we are naive to think that the technology won’t eventually overtake even the most gifted of legal writers.

That point may not be tomorrow; it may not be five years from now. But that time is coming, and when it does, denial and hostility won’t get us around the fact that it may no longer be in the best interests of our clients for a lawyer to write briefs on their own. Denial and hostility won’t help us deal with what, at that point, will be a serious existential threat to our profession.

The second way to deal with the uncertainty of emerging technology is to recognize that profound change is inevitable and then do the deeper, tougher and more philosophical work of discerning how humans can still be of value in a profession that, like nearly every other, will cede a great deal of ground to AI in the not-too-distant future. What will it mean to be a lawyer, a judge or a law professor in that world? What should it mean?

I am increasingly convinced that the answers to those questions are in so-called soft skills and critical thinking. I see a significant amount of evidence that AI will eventually best us at writing legal briefs. But I see little evidence that AI will be able to offer anything close to the kind of support, counseling and empathy that lawyers routinely offer clients that come to them for help.

I see a significant amount of evidence that AI will eventually be able to derive the elements of an obscure legal claim much more quickly than a lawyer could doing research on their own. I see no evidence that AI will be able to tell when a client is lying, when what a client identifies as their most significant legal issue is far from it, or when the best course of action in a case is to persuade a client to pursue something wholly different than what they initially wanted.

As I frequently tell my students, one of an attorney’s most important jobs is to protect clients from themselves. I am not convinced that AI will ever be able to replicate the human instinct and intuition that good lawyers cultivate.

We have tough years ahead of us in all professions, but denial and hostility to AI will not save us. Instead of attempting to hold back this tide of profound change with all our might—an effort that will certainly fail—we have to become comfortable with discomfort, with putting all our most cherished traditions and techniques up for review, and with redefining what it is that we as (human) attorneys can do well.

So what of my high school trigonometry class? Was it a waste? Of course not. My teacher was wrong about calculators, but he was right about many other things: the importance of trying multiple approaches to a problem, rather than giving up; the necessity of walking slowly and carefully through each step of a solution to avoid silly mistakes; and the conviction that a little chalk dust on your pants should be a source of pride, rather than embarrassment.

He was a good person trying his hardest to prepare us for life. I hope to follow in his footsteps as a teacher in that way, particularly when the path forward will require an abundance of the virtues that he so carefully taught.

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Tracy Hresko Pearl is professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She researches and writes in the areas of law and technology, criminal procedure and torts. Before becoming an academic, she was an associate at Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., and a law clerk for judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

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ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

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Criminal Justice

Former CFO at Tom Girardi’s law firm reaches plea deal, agrees to $3.1M forfeiture

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 10, 2024, 9:18 am CDT

The former chief financial officer at disbarred lawyer Tom Girardi’s law firm has reached a deal to plead guilty to two counts of wire fraud that caused losses of at least $3.5 million.

Former CFO Christopher K. Kamon agreed to plead guilty, to forfeit $3.1 million and to pay restitution, report Law360 and the Los Angeles Times.

The agreement was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The plea deal follows Girardi’s August conviction for stealing $15 million from four personal injury clients at his now-collapsed firm, Girardi Keese, over the course of a decade.

Girardi, 85, was famous for his legal team’s portrayal in the film Erin Brockovich and for his marriage to Erika Girardi, who has appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reality TV show. He is now living in an assisted living facility and has a dementia diagnosis. His lawyers are seeking to overturn the conviction for an alleged inability to understand trial proceedings, Law.com reports.

Kamon acknowledges that he worked with Girardi to defraud clients, and that he participated in a “side fraud” scheme involving fraudulent invoices.

A factual statement says Girardi typically called Kamon each morning and asked how much money was in the firm’s bank accounts, including its client trust accounts. When operating accounts were low, Girardi allegedly instructed Kamon to move money out of client trust accounts and label them as attorney fees, even when attorney fees had already been paid.

“This was a common practice at Girardi Keese of which other senior lawyers in the firm were aware,” the statement of facts said.

Sometimes settlement funds belonging to current clients in trust accounts were used to pay other clients whose settlement funds had been stolen, according to the statement of facts.

Kamon and federal prosecutors in Los Angeles disagreed on the amount of the loss. Kamon said the amount is at least $3.5 million and no more than $9.5 million. Prosecutors reserved the right to argue that the amount ranged from more than $9.5 million to less than $25 million.

Kamon did not agree to a particular prison sentence. Money collected from Kamon in the bankruptcy proceedings for Girardi Keese would be credited toward the forfeiture amount.

The potential maximum prison sentence is 40 years. The offenses also carry a potential fine equal to twice the gain or losses resulting from the offenses or the amount of $500,000, whichever is greater.

Kamon, Girardi and a third lawyer are facing separate charges in Chicago for allegedly stealing settlement money from five relatives of victims killed in an October 2018 plane crash.

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Criminal Justice

Prosecutors seek to revoke Alex Murdaugh’s federal plea deal over $6M in missing money

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 27, 2024, 2:02 pm CDT

Federal prosecutors want to revoke their financial-crimes plea deal with disbarred South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh because they think that he has not been truthful about the location of more than $6 million in missing money and the possible involvement of another attorney in wrongdoing.

Prosecutors say Murdaugh was required to be “fully truthful” about criminal activity as part of the deal in which Murdaugh pleaded guilty to federal charges in September 2023 for stealing millions of dollars from clients, his law firm and the estate of his late housekeeper. He violated that promise, prosecutors say in a March 26 motion filed in South Carolina federal court.

The Associated Press and the Post and Courier have coverage of the prosecution request to hold Murdaugh in breach of the agreement.

Prosecutors had alleged that Murdaugh murdered his wife, Maggie, and son Paul in June 2021 to distract attention from his financial crimes. He was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison in March 2023. Two months after he pleaded guilty to federal charges of stealing from clients, he pleaded guilty to state charges of financial crimes.

As part of the federal plea deal, prosecutors said they would recommend that Murdaugh’s federal sentence for stealing from clients run concurrently with any state sentence for the same conduct. Now, prosecutors say the government should be relieved of its obligations under the plea deal, including the recommendation for a concurrent sentence. Prosecutors now plan to recommend the maximum sentence.

The government says Murdaugh failed polygraph tests in which he was asked about the missing money and possible involvement by the other attorney, who was not named in the motion. Murdaugh did, however, admit involvement of two others in his financial crimes—former banker Russell Laffitte and disbarred lawyer Cory Fleming, the government points out.

The motion says Murdaugh can’t withdraw his guilty plea because it would unjustly reward him for breaching the plea agreement.

Murdaugh has sought a new trial on the murder charges on the ground that the elected court clerk in Colleton County, South Carolina, tampered with the jury by warning jurors that they shouldn’t be fooled by defense testimony and by meeting privately with a jury foreperson. The new trial request was denied.

Rebecca Hill, the Colleton County, South Carolina, clerk, announced her resignation Monday, the Washington Post reports.

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Ethics

Lawyer’s joint sex with boyfriend and his daughter was ‘tantamount to rape,’ despite plea deal, disbarment order says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 13, 2024, 11:51 am CDT

An Ohio lawyer has been permanently disbarred for repeatedly joining with her boyfriend to abuse his 13-year-old daughter.

The Ohio Supreme Court disbarred lawyer Amber Renee Goodman of Elida, Ohio, rejecting ethics officials’ recommendation for an indefinite suspension based on the lawyer’s plea to a lesser charge, report the Columbus Dispatch, Law360 and Court News Ohio (via the Legal Profession Blog).

“Looking to the misconduct underlying Goodman’s conviction shows that her actions were tantamount to rape,” the Ohio Supreme Court said in its March 12 decision. “Goodman encouraged and perpetuated the sexual molestation committed by the victim’s father, and at the very least, she was complicit in his crimes. But she was actually more than complicit—she actively engaged in the repeated rape of the child.”

The abuse involving Goodman and the teenager’s father happened over a period of four to six months. The boyfriend had sexual intercourse with Goodman and his daughter, while Goodman performed other sexual acts, the state supreme court said. The teen said, however, her father began sexually molesting her much earlier, when she was 9 years old.

“Goodman’s willingness, in the victim’s words, to ‘join in’ perpetuated and added to the abuse that the child suffered, and Goodman became just another ‘monster’ in the child’s life,” the Ohio Supreme Court said in an opinion by Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy. “And rather than report this abuse to authorities, Goodman told the victim not to tell anyone about it.”

After the teen reported the abuse in January 2019, Goodman continued a relationship with the teen’s father for two years.

Goodman had pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual contact with a minor, a third-degree felony, in May 2022. The law bars adults from engaging in sexual conduct with a person older than age 13 but less than age 16, when the offender knows the age of the victim or is reckless in that regard.

Goodman was placed on an interim suspension after her conviction. The Ohio Board of Professional Conduct had recommended an indefinite suspension with no credit for time spent under interim suspension. Generally, lawyers on indefinite suspension can apply for reinstatement after two years, according to Court News Ohio.

Goodman was sentenced to 30 months in prison. She was released after almost eight months of incarceration provided that she served 120 days in the county jail and five years on community control. She was also required to abstain from use of alcohol and illegal substances.

Goodman had claimed that past trauma had made her susceptible to manipulation by the boyfriend. Goodman said her father had left when she was 3 years old, and “nothing she ever did as a child was good enough for him.” She also said she had been mentally abused by one of her two ex-husbands and physically abused by both of them.

“At her disciplinary hearing, Goodman portrayed herself as the victim of manipulation and lies, but she failed to explain how that could possibly cause her to molest a child,” the state supreme court said.

Nor did she produce evidence showing how trauma that she suffered as a child and an adult contributed to her misconduct, the Ohio Supreme Court said.

In a concurrence, Justice Michael P. Donnelly said ethics officials would have been able to recommend a more appropriate sanction if “the criminal-justice system properly held Goodman to account for the criminal acts she committed.”

Donnelly said he thought that Goodman would have been convicted of rape if prosecutors had presented evidence available to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Donnelly criticized the Ohio Supreme Court for rejecting a rule change eight years ago that would have required felony charges in plea bargains to have a factual basis in the conduct actually committed.

“As a result,” Donnelly said, “Goodman managed to plead guilty to a crime that does not come close to accounting for the vile acts she committed.”

Goodman’s lawyer, George D. Jonson, did not immediately reply to an ABA Journal email and a voicemail seeking comment. Jonson’s voicemail message states that he is in a disciplinary hearing through Thursday.

A man seen in video striking officers with a metal baseball bat during the U.S. Capitol riots and saying he was “not there for Trump” is considering a plea deal in his case, court documents said.

The U.S. Justice Department has submitted a plea offer to Emanuel Jackson. He was charged with assaulting an officer of the United States, assaulting an officer of the United States with a deadly or dangerous weapon, obstruction of an official proceeding, unlawful entry and physical violence on restricted building or grounds and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Defense attorneys are reviewing the offer, and a plea hearing is set for May 10, according to the court docket.