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Law Firms

Recruitment of lawyers from Trump-targeted firms is ethics violation, Democrats’ letter says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 9, 2025, 2:40 pm CDT

Updated: Two Democratic lawmakers are asking White House counsel David Warrington and six BigLaw firms for information related to deals made with President Donald Trump to avoid punitive executive orders.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland sent letters to four firms that reached deals, as well as two others mentioned in a story by the New York Times on attempts to poach lawyers and their clients from one of the targeted firms, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

Law.com, Law360 and Reuters have coverage.

Trump’s executive orders have targeted firms “for representing clients and advocating for causes that he abhors,” Blumenthal and Raskin wrote to the White House counsel. “As far as we can tell from public reports, these executive orders have turned into an illegal shakedown of the legal profession.”

Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp previously told employees that he had hoped that the legal industry would support the firm. Instead, “certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys,” he had said.

Seeking to profit by luring away Paul Weiss lawyers would, if true, be a violation of the ban on conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, said the letters sent to Sullivan & Cromwell and Kirkland & Ellis.

The letters ask the two firms for information about efforts to recruit Paul Weiss lawyers.

Both firms deny the poaching allegations, made in a March 26 story in the New York Times based on anonymous sources.

Within days of the executive order targeting Paul Weiss, “some of the biggest competitors were calling top lawyers at the beleaguered law firm—one of the nation’s most prestigious—asking if they wanted to jump ship along with their lucrative clients,” the New York Times reported. “Several firms, including Sullivan & Cromwell and Kirkland & Ellis, were looking to exploit the moment, according to five lawyers with direct knowledge of the poaching.”

A Sullivan & Cromwell spokesperson gave this statement about the Paul Weiss lawyer poaching allegations to Law.com, Law360 and Reuters: “This allegation is completely false. To the contrary, our firm management made a deliberate decision not to approach any attorneys in response to the executive order,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

A Kirkland & Ellis spokesperson gave this statement to the same publications: “The assertion that Kirkland was among firms reaching out to Paul Weiss lawyers or clients and trying to recruit them is categorically false. That did not happen.”

Paul Weiss was one of four settling firms sent letters seeking information about the deals with Trump, according to an April 7 press release by Blumenthal. The others are Milbank; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

In the deals with Trump, firms pledged to devote millions of dollars in pro bono services to issues that the firms and Trump support. Firms also committed to merit-based employments practices and agreed that they won’t deny service to clients based on political viewpoint.

“If every law firm targeted by the president were to accede to his unlawful demands, the resulting threat to Americans’ constitutional protections would erode our democratic values and cherished civil liberties, as well as cost the legal profession dearly and for many years to come,” the letters to settling firms said.

The Trump administration has published five executive orders targeting law firms. Paul Weiss was one of them. The others were Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, and Jenner & Block. All but Covington & Burling and Paul Weiss have filed lawsuits.

The executive orders typically called for suspension of lawyers’ security clearances, restricted employee access to government buildings, blocked government hiring of firm employees, and required agencies to take steps to terminate contracts with the firms and their clients—if the firm provided services in connection with the client contract.

“The courts that have considered these vendetta orders to date have universally ruled against them,” Blumenthal and Raskin wrote.

The order against Covington & Burling was less sweeping. It called for the suspension of security clearances issued to Covington & Burling lawyers who aided former special counsel Jack Smith and called for government agencies to end engagements with Covington & Burling.

According to David Schaefer, a Covington & Burling spokesperson, the order only affected the security clearance of one lawyer at the firm. And the firm is not a federal contractor, he said.

See also:

Which firms, legal groups, law profs signed briefs supporting Perkins Coie in challenge to punitive Trump order?

Updated April 9 at 5:04 p.m. to clarify that the order targeting Covington & Burling was less sweeping.

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3. Prosecutor who sent nude photos to federal…

Judiciary

Prosecutor who sent nude photos to federal judge ‘felt trapped,’ thought she had no choice, cited letter says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 11, 2024, 2:57 pm CST

An assistant U.S. attorney in Alaska said she felt “completely powerless” when then-U.S. District Judge Joshua M. Kindred of the District of Alaska asked for nude photos around the same time that he allegedly texted her about holding grudges and his power to help her win a nomination to the federal bench, according to documents unsealed Monday.

The assistant U.S. attorney’s allegations were revealed after Senior U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernández of the District of Oregon unsealed his September order granting a new trial to a cyberstalking defendant. Kindred presided in the case, and the assistant U.S. attorney described as “AUSA 1” had some prosecution involvement.

“The specific, unusual and highly troubling facts of Judge Kindred’s interactions and relationship with AUSA 1 give rise to at least the appearance of impropriety,” Hernández wrote when he granted the new trial.

Hernández also unsealed a defense brief that cited the prosecutor’s August letter detailing her relationship with Kindred. The brief does not indicate the recipient of the letter but says it appears to be in response to Kindred’s July resignation and the filing of motions by the defense counsel.

Reuters and Law360 have coverage, while the Volokh Conspiracy published part of the opinion.

Kindred abruptly resigned from the federal bench in July after he was referred to the U.S. Judicial Conference for possible impeachment. The judicial council of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco had requested the resignation after concluding that Kindred created a hostile work environment for his law clerks and had a “sexualized relationship” with one of them.

The May judicial council report also mentioned the federal prosecutor who sent nude photos to the judge.

A defense motion for a new trial in the cyberstalking case included information said to have been in the letter from “AUSA 1.” The redacted letter was disclosed to the defense by a federal prosecutor tapped to review Kindred’s cases and whether recusal might have been required.

Before she sent the photos, “AUSA 1” said, Kindred sent texts saying he found her attractive, and he had recommended her for a federal judgeship. Shortly before that, Kindred allegedly texted “AUSA 1” about anger issues and holding grudges.

Her letter said she felt pressured to send the photos, according to the defense motion.

“I felt trapped and believed I had no choice,” she wrote. She thought that she “had no other option because he has the power to ruin not only my career but my personal life, as well.”

The prosecutor made the accusations after saying in an earlier letter that her relationship with Kindred was purely professional, according to Hernández’s order.

The cyberstalking defendant was tried and convicted a second time last month, according to a Dec. 6 press release.

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3. Courtroom ‘is not a theater’ for unsubstantiated…

Rule of Law

Courtroom ‘is not a theater’ for unsubstantiated election claims, says letter signed by 125 bar leaders

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 5, 2024, 12:42 pm CST

All lawsuits—including election-related actions—must be “grounded in fact, supported by law and free from improper motives,” according to an open letter signed by 125 past and current bar leaders when it was published Monday evening.

“The courtroom is not a theater for unsubstantiated claims,” according to the letter.

Among the bar leaders who signed the letter are four people who identify themselves as former ABA presidents: R. William “Bill” Ide (1994-95), Dennis W. Archer (2003-2004), Laurel G. Bellows (2012-2013) and James R. Silkenat (2013-2014).

Mary Smith, who is the immediate past president of the ABA, also signed the letter but identified herself as a past president of the National Native American Bar Association.

Another former ABA president, Linda Klein, (2016-2017) also signed the letter but identified herself as a past president of the State Bar of Georgia.

Some members of the ABA Task Force for American Democracy organized the letter in their personal capacity.

U.S. News & World Report spoke with Monte E. Frank, a member of the ABA Task Force for American Democracy’s advisory commission. He said the letter is intended to remind lawyers that they are “oath-bound protectors of the Constitution and rule of law.”

“By having state bar and local bar and national bar leaders stand up and lead on this sends a very powerful message to those who are seeking to undermine the integrity of our elections,” said Frank, who signed the letter as a past president of the Connecticut Bar Association and the New England Bar Association.

After the 2020 presidential election, “some 628 legal cases were filed alleging fraud or impropriety, and they were overwhelmingly unsuccessful,” the letter said. Five lawyers connected to the cases were disbarred or suspended from law practice.

The baseless cases stirred confusion and anger, leading to threats against election workers, judges and others and likely contributing to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the letter said.

“Filing election-related lawsuits without a solid factual and legal foundation endangers the very institutions lawyers are oath-bound to defend,” the letter said. “In a functioning democracy, lawsuits are not weapons to spread distrust—they are tools for justice.”

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3. Is ex-DOJ official facing ethics trial for…

Ethics

Is ex-DOJ official facing ethics trial for ‘thought crime’? His election-fraud letter was based on sincerely held belief, lawyer says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 27, 2024, 10:01 am CDT

A former Department of Justice official accused of drafting a letter with false allegations of election fraud that he hoped to send to Georgia officials did not violate ethics rules, his lawyer said at a disciplinary hearing Tuesday.

Jeffrey Clark, who was the acting chief of the DOJ’s Civil Division, is facing ethics charges for “”what amounts to a thought crime,” Clark’s lawyer, Harry W. MacDougald, said in an opening statement Tuesday.

Law360 reported the remark. The Washington Post, Legal Ethics Roundup, Law.com and Reuters are among the other publications with hearing coverage.

Clark had asked other department officials to sign the letter, but they refused, according to the charges by the District of Columbia Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Clark then told those officials that former President Donald Trump had offered him the job of acting U.S. attorney general, and he was thinking of accepting it if the letter was not sent.

The two officials, then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen and then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, told Trump that he should expect all the assistant attorneys general to resign if Clark became the acting attorney general. Clark did not get the job.

Clark’s draft letter claimed that the DOJ had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of Georgia.”

Hamilton P. “Phil” Fox III, the lead prosecuting attorney in the discipline case, said Tuesday during the hearing Clark engaged in “coercive tactics to get this letter sent” and what he was trying to do “was essentially a coup at the Department of Justice,” according to Law360.

MacDougald emphasized that the letter was never sent, the Washington Post reports.

“This was an internal debate and an internal disagreement. The letter was never released by Mr. Clark or by the president,” he said. “Mr. Clark did nothing wrong in having a different opinion from his Justice superiors, especially when it was sincerely held, as the evidence will show.”

Clark is also facing criminal charges in the Georgia election-interference case against Trump.

The ethics charges allege that Clark tried to engage in conduct involving dishonesty by trying to send the letter with false statements, and that Clark tried to engage in conduct that would seriously interfere with the administration of justice.

The hearing, which is streaming live on YouTube, is happening before a committee of the D.C. Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility, which will make a recommendation to the full board if it finds ethics violations, Reuters explains. After action by the full board, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has the final say on discipline.

A grandson recently arrested on suspicion of carjacking his 77-year-old grandmother in the driveway outside the Florida home they shared wrote her a tearful apology, authorities said.