1. Home
2. Daily News
3. 3 lawyers with ‘elite establishment credentials’…

Careers

3 lawyers with ‘elite establishment credentials’ have joined Musk’s DOGE effort, report says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 12, 2025, 3:10 pm CST

Three lawyers who have joined Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have “elite establishment credentials,” according to a report by ProPublica.

Two of the lawyers have clerked for U.S. Supreme Court justices, while the third has been hired as a Supreme Court clerk for the 2025-2026 term, ProPublica reports here and here. They also have BigLaw ties. The lawyers are:

  • James Burnham, who is the DOGE’s general counsel. A former clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch, Burnham was formerly a Jones Day partner. He worked in the White House counsel’s office and the U.S. Department of Justice in the first Trump administration. More recently, he launched a boutique law firm and a litigation finance fund.

  • Keenan Kmiec, a former clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts. He worked at a “corporate law firm” (identified as Sidley Austin on LinkedIn), worked at his own firm handling insider trading litigation, worked at a Swiss foundation promoting blockchain, and was the CEO of a startup.

  • Jacob Altik, who has been hired to clerk for Gorsuch beginning this summer. He is a former associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and a former intern at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to “protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the administrative state.”

Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Judge accuses high-profile law firms of possible…

Trials & Litigation

Judge accuses high-profile law firms of possible effort to ‘gum up the works’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 22, 2024, 12:49 pm CDT

A federal judge in Boston complained during a status conference Friday that lawyers from three high-profile law firms had filed so many motions and documents that they were failing to keep litigation just, speedy and inexpensive, as required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of the District of Massachusetts scolded 11 lawyers involved in litigation over the sale of a Mexican funeral company.

Law360 has the story, summarized by Above the Law.

On the one side are lawyers from Boies Schiller Flexner, who represent Servicios Funerarios GG, a Mexican company alleging that it was misled about the financial condition of a funeral business that it bought.

On the other side are lawyers with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and with Ropes & Gray. They represent the Advent International Corp., a U.S. private equity investment company with control of the entities that owned the funeral business before its sale.

After Servicios Funerarios filed the fraud lawsuit, the Advent International Corp. filed counterclaims claiming that it was being extorted.

Talwani said the document-heavy litigation appeared to be “an effort to try to gum up the works.” Law360 published her comments.

“I don’t understand how 11 lawyers can jointly make what we are doing here difficult,” Talwani said. “It is not serving you well—your clients paying your bills—and I do want you to pass this message to your client: In order to try to keep your bills down, it would be helpful to try and figure out whether there are some things that don’t have to be fought about.”

“That might serve your clients,” Talwani said. “It might not serve your pocketbooks, and you can tell your clients that was my comment.”

Talwani spoke after the two sides were unable to agree on a litigation timeline. However, the issues extend beyond the Massachusetts case.

“The litigation has proved complicated,” Law360 reports, “as arrest warrants were filed against Advent personnel in the U.S. and Mexico.”

In addition, a related suit in Delaware chancery court sought to enforce terms of the sale agreement.

Carlos Sires of Boies Schiller Flexner told Law360 that its client “shares the court’s frustration and requested the conference because it wanted to address the delays caused by [the Advent International Corp.’s] objections to the depositions of some of its key employees involved in the [funeral home] transaction.”

Lawyers with Quinn Emanuel and Ropes & Gray did not immediately provide a comment to the ABA Journal in response to its emailed request.