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Law Firms

Executive orders against firms threaten rule of law, Susman Godfrey says in suit against Trump administration

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 14, 2025, 12:39 pm CDT

Updated: Susman Godfrey has alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday that President Donald Trump’s campaign of executive orders targeting the law firm and other well-known firms is an unconstitutional threat to the rule of law.

“The president is abusing the powers of his office to wield the might of the executive branch in retaliation against organizations and people that he dislikes. Nothing in our Constitution or laws grants a president such power,” according to the April 11 suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “If a president can with impunity seek to destroy a law firm because of the clients it represents, then the rule of law itself is in grave danger.”

If the executive orders against Susman Godfrey and other firms are allowed to stand, future presidents will face no constraint when they retaliate against different perceived enemies, the suit says.

“Put simply, this could be any of us,” the suit says.

Law360, Reuters and Bloomberg Law are among the publications with coverage.

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan of Washington, D.C., granted a temporary restraining order Tuesday to block sections of the executive order denying access to government property and calling for an end to government contracts in which the firm provides services.

“The executive order is based on a personal vendetta against a particular firm,” AliKhan said during the hearing, according to a report by Reuters. “And, frankly, I think the framers of our Constitution would view it as a shocking abuse of power.”

Publications covering the ruling, in addition to Reuters, include Law.com and Law360.

Three other firms that sued over executive orders have also obtained TROs.

Susman Godfrey, a firm with 235 attorneys, describes itself as “the nation’s foremost trial firm” in the suit, Susman Godfrey v. Executive Office of the President. Susman Godfrey is represented in the suit by a legal team at Munger, Tolles & Olson headed by Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who was the U.S. solicitor general in the Obama administration and also was a former Jenner & Block partner.

The April 9 executive order targeting Susman Godfrey alleged that the firm “spearheads efforts to weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections.” Susman Godfrey is one of the firms that filed a defamation suit against Fox News for false claims that voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems were used to help former President Joe Biden win the 2020 election. The case settled for $787.5 million.

The executive order against Susman Godfrey seeks the suspension of security clearances issued to any of the firm’s lawyers; restricts access to government buildings for firm employees; bans the government from providing resources to Susman Godfrey, including compartmentalized information facilities; bans government hiring of Susman Godfrey employees; and calls for termination of government contracts for which Susman Godfrey has been hired to provide services, including clients’ government contracts.

Trump’s executive order “effectively seeks to create a new condition of government contracting—that contractors not work with Susman Godfrey,” the suit says.

That is an unconstitutional condition that interferes with a First Amendment right to associate and a due process right to counsel under the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, according to the suit, which also cites other alleged constitutional violations.

Susman Godfrey is the fourth firm to sue over executive orders. The others are Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, Jenner & Block, and Perkins Coie.

Firms that have reached agreements with Trump to avoid executive orders are Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Milbank; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Kirkland & Ellis; A&O Shearman; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Latham & Watkins; and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

The deals typically provide that the firms will provide pro bono services for projects mutually supported by the firms and Trump. Amounts of pro bono pledged range from $40 million to $125 million.

See also:

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

Updated April 16 at 8:45 a.m. to include information on the temporary restraining order.

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3. Which firms, legal groups, law profs signed…

Law Firms

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

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 8, 2025, 8:52 am CDT

Amicus briefs supporting Perkins Coie are piling up in its challenge to a punitive order against the law firm signed by President Donald Trump.

The briefs have been filed by more than 500 firms, more than 360 law professors, nearly 350 former judges and a “cross-ideological group” that includes the American Civil Liberties Union and the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest firm, report Law.com (here and here); Bloomberg Law; Reuters (here and here); Law360; and press releases by Law Forward, a nonprofit organization, and the ACLU.

The firm brief is mostly signed by smaller and midsize firms. According to Law.com, larger and well-known firms that signed are:

  • Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer

  • Covington & Burling

  • Crowell & Moring

  • Davis Wright Tremaine

  • Fenwick & West

  • Foley Hoag

  • Freshfields US

  • Hanson Bridgett

  • Jenner & Block

  • Manatt, Phelps & Phillips

  • Munger, Tolles & Olson

  • Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler

  • Stoel Rives

  • Susman Godfrey

  • Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr

Perkins Coie sued after Trump issued an executive order that suspended Perkins Coie’s security clearance, limited access to federal buildings by its lawyers, blocked government hiring of firm employees, and required federal agencies to take steps to terminate contracts with the firms and their clients—if the firm provided services in connection with the client contract.

WilmerHale and Jenner & Block also sued after they were targeted with executive orders. Covington & Burling was also targeted in a more limited executive order; it has not filed suit.

As of April 3, four other firms reached deals with Trump to avoid punitive measures. The deals included pledges of pro bono support on issues supported by Trump and the firms.

A Perkins Coie spokesperson told Reuters that the firm was grateful to the firms that signed the amicus brief “in our challenge to the unconstitutional executive order and the threat it poses to the rule of law.”

Above the Law is compiling firms’ reactions to actions by the Trump administration in its “BigLaw Spine Index.” Law.com has published a timeline of the executive orders and firms’ response to them.

The legal advocacy groups that signed the ACLU brief are:

  • The ACLU

  • The ACLU of the District of Columbia

  • The Cato Institute

  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation

  • The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

  • The Institute for Justice

  • The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University

  • The National Coalition Against Censorship

  • The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press

  • The Rutherford Institute

  • The Society for the Rule of Law Institute

Judges who signed an amicus brief include retired state supreme court and appellate justices and former federal judges. Among them are:

  • Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Richmond, Virginia

  • Retired Judge Diana Gribbon Motz of the 4th Circuit at Richmond, Virginia

  • Retired Judge Kathleen M. O’Malley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

  • Retired Judge Thomas I. Vanaskie of the 3rd Circuit at Philadelphia

  • Retired U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York

Law professors who signed the professor brief are from law schools that include Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, Stanford Law School, the University of California, the Georgetown University Law Center, the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, Cornell Law School, the New York University School of Law, the University of Chicago Law School, Columbia Law School and the University of Michigan Law School.

Professors who signed the brief include Michael C. Dorf of Cornell Law School, Mark A. Lemley of Stanford Law School, Owen Fiss of Yale Law School, Harold Hongju Koh of Yale Law School, Leah Litman of the University of Michigan Law School, Eugene Volokh of the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law and Pamela S. Karlan of Stanford Law School.

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3. ‘There is no question that we will fight,’…

Law Firms

‘There is no question that we will fight,’ says latest law firm targeted in Trump executive order

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 10, 2025, 10:26 am CDT

The latest law firm targeted by the Trump administration, Susman Godfrey, won’t be the last, President Donald Trump said Wednesday.

Trump said the administration had signed deals with many targeted firms, and, “We have another five to go,” Bloomberg Law reports.

Other publications with coverage include Law.com and Reuters.

Susman plans to fight the executive order signed by Trump on Wednesday. It is the sixth firm targeted by Trump in punitive orders because of their representation of clients and causes adverse to Trump.

One of the targeted firms—Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison—is no longer subject to an order because of a deal that it reached with Trump that included an agreement to provide $40 million in pro bono services to mutually supported pro bono projects.

Three other firms also reached deals with Trump to avoid future executive orders targeting them.

Susman vowed to fight in a statement published on its website.

“Anyone who knows Susman Godfrey knows we believe in the rule of law, and we take seriously our duty to uphold it,” the statement said. “This principle guides us now. There is no question that we will fight this unconstitutional order.”

The Susman order seeks the suspension of security clearances issued to any of the firm’s lawyers; restricts access to government buildings for firm employees; bans the government from providing resources to Susman, including compartmentalized information facilities; bans government hiring of Susman employees; and calls for termination of government contracts for which Susman has been hired to provide services, including contracts retained by its clients.

Susman was one of the firms that filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News for false claims that voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems were used to help former President Joe Biden win the 2020 election. The case settled for $787.5 million.

The executive order alleged that Susman “spearheads efforts to weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections.”

According to Bloomberg Law, “Susman is home to some of the country’s top trial lawyers and is well-known for taking major contingency fee cases.” It has profits of nearly $7 million per partner in fiscal year 2023.

Executive orders that targeted Paul Weiss and three other firms included provisions similar to the Susman executive order. A memo targeting Covington & Burling was more limited.

In addition to Paul Weiss, the firms that reached deals with Trump are Milbank; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Each of those three firms agreed to provide $100 million in pro bono services to mutually agreeable pro bono projects.

Firms that sued over the executive orders are Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, Jenner & Block and Perkins Coie. They have all obtained temporary restraining orders blocking many sections of the executive orders.

See also:

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

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3. 2 Irell & Manella lawyers should be sanctioned…

Ethics

2 Irell & Manella lawyers should be sanctioned after witness ‘was tricked’ with altered document, special master says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 20, 2025, 3:02 pm CDT

An Irell & Manella associate who decided to alter a date on a schematic drawing to prove a point during a deposition should be sanctioned, along with a partner who missed an email revealing the plan, a special master has recommended.

The associate, Benjamin Manzin-Monnin, came up with the idea to show that such dates can be unreliable, according to the March 18 opinion by special master David Folsom. Manzin-Monnin questioned a witness about the document before revealing that it had been altered.

Law360 has the story.

Folsom noted that all lawyers from Irell & Manella attend in-house ethics seminars. Folson said Manzin-Monnin should be required to attend 30 additional hours of ethics courses, along with the partner he notified in an email chain, Jason Sheasby.

Folsom also recommended that Irell & Manella pay fees and costs incurred by the special master and defendant Samsung Electronics in connection with the sanctions motion. And he said Irell & Manella’s client, CogniPower, should lose an hour of trial time in its patent infringement case, filed against Samsung Electronics in federal court for the Eastern District of Texas.

The deposition witness was an executive at a company that, according to Samsung Electronics, had an invention that predates CogniPower’s patents, Law360 explains.

A law firm employee had advised Manzin-Monnin in September 2024 to “get clear directions” from a senior attorney regarding the “mocked up dates on evidence floating around.” Manzin-Monnin replied that he had emailed “Jason,” an apparent reference to Sheasby.

But Sheasby said he “missed” the email from Manzin-Monnin while acknowledging that it was his responsibility to read it.

In a declaration, Sheasby said during the deposition, Manzin-Monnin had shown the expert witness “the correct document, then later the altered version, and then immediately the correct and altered side by side, and then told the witness he altered on[e] of the documents.”

The witness “was tricked” and “obviously confused” by questions about the altered date, Folsom said in the opinion. The fact that Manzin-Monnin did not mark the altered document as an exhibit during the deposition “is immaterial,” Folsom said.

Sheasby said in the declaration Manzin-Monnin has been subject to “professional strictures” as a result of his behavior. In addition, the firm’s general counsel had scheduled a mandatory March 19 ethics seminar for all the firm’s attorneys to address the events and to “ensure that nothing of this nature happens again.”

Neither Manzin-Monnin nor Sheasby immediately responded to the ABA Journal’s email request for comment. Nor did a firm spokesperson immediately reply to a Journal email.

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Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Edward Chick, the chief revenue officer at NopalCyber, a managed security services provider that offers outsourced cybersecurity support while seeking to democratize enterprise-level security for law firms and organizations in other sectors.

They discussed best practices to help law firm leaders identify cyber threats, mistakes that they are making with their cybersecurity protocols, how often they should test and update their cybersecurity procedures, and where to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance cybersecurity.

Ari Kaplan: Tell us about your background and your role at NopalCyber.

Edward Chick: I have been in high-tech software and services for decades. I’ve worked with SAP, IBM and Oracle. Additionally, I have experience with smaller companies, including startups, and I have successfully helped them establish a stronger presence in the marketplace. I’m passionate about assisting customers in leveraging technology and services to enhance their operations.

Ari Kaplan: What makes NopalCyber’s method of identifying and prioritizing internal and external threats unique?

Edward Chick: Cybersecurity is sometimes not seen as important as it truly is because it operates behind the scenes. Many individuals using technology or engaged in business assume that others are managing these aspects. At NopalCyber, we have observed that a lot of complexity leads organizations and business executives to categorize it as an IT issue. Therefore, our business goal is to democratize cybersecurity, making it more accessible and bringing it to the forefront of business leaders’ awareness. We aim to collaborate with IT professionals to provide them with the support and resources necessary to achieve greater success. We serve multiple industries and possess decades of experience in the legal sector and many others. What we’ve observed is that the battle continues and is becoming more severe. The value we provide is our tech stack neutrality; we work with technologies that organizations have already invested in, often heavily. Many of these technology platforms come with built-in tools, like those from Microsoft or AWS. On average, organizations use about 30 different cybersecurity-related protection tools. These organizations may encounter thousands of alerts and alarms daily, facing a ‘needle-in-a-haystack’ challenge to identify the most critical issues. They must find ways to resolve these problems and take proactive measures to prevent them from occurring. There is enormous pressure on IT, especially in the United States. At NopalCyber, we bring both expertise in the particular industries these companies operate in, such as legal, and the resources to work with all the various technologies they are employing, thereby supplementing and strengthening their security posture.

Ari Kaplan: Which assets are most critical for law firms to protect?

Edward Chick: Absolutely everything. We begin by helping individuals become more savvy in protecting their interactions with technology, such as passwords. However, many bad actors are also targeting website applications or platforms or underlying data to gain access to something valuable. In business, there are two key areas of truth: the accounting systems and the contracts they manage. These represent formal areas of substance, with legal practitioners overseeing one-half of that. The bad actors are aware of this and see legal activities as potential targets. We’ve noticed that midsize law firms often lack sufficient protections. Insurers recognize this and the cost of cyber insurance, especially in the legal field, is quite high while coverage is actually declining, meaning you pay more for less. One of NopalCyber’s added values is our ability to strengthen these companies’ postures, which can help reduce cyber insurance costs and provide better protections from insurers. Another critical factor involves regulators. Even if a specific company is not heavily regulated by, for example, the SEC, the customers they work with may be subject to regulations. Over the past six months, we’ve seen an increasing requirement from the SEC for companies to enhance their compliance. They now have a duty to report any concerns. In the legal field, because lawyers collaborate with other firms, they engage in a community of activity related to specific matters or contracts, potentially involving participants who are heavily regulated. Naturally, insurance companies are aware of this and heighten exposure due to the regulators mandating protections that the insurance companies are then expected to cover. This creates a network of interlocking dependencies, and at NopalCyber, we can significantly assist in strengthening the postures of these companies, allowing them to achieve a more favorable cost structure from their insurers and, of course, adhere better to the regulators’ requirements.

Ari Kaplan: What mistakes are law firm leaders making with their cybersecurity protocols?

Edward Chick: They’re often taking it for granted. These are competent professionals with expertise in their field, and they reasonably assume that IT has this under control. However, the fact is that IT is under tremendous pressure; the bad guys are constantly changing their strategies and tactics. We also often notice that general counsel and legal practitioners don’t offer their assistance frequently enough. They could take a leadership position by regularly reaching out to IT and asking, “How can we help? How can I prioritize the risks associated with the particular tools I’m using? How can I provide you with more information about my business activities to give IT and your chief security officers better visibility into what’s important for the business?” We’ve seen that this leadership fosters prioritization regarding budgets, costs and awareness of regulatory exposures.

Ari Kaplan: How often should law firms test and update their cybersecurity procedures?

Edward Chick: Definitely not once a year. Companies conduct annual penetration tests on their platforms or specific applications, for example, but that’s not really good enough. We’ve seen organizations increase the frequency to quarterly or even monthly. Our position is that all these aspects should be inspected 24/7. The bad guys aren’t waiting for an annual opportunity to act. Consequently, the exposures are permanent and require full-time attention. Legal professionals can play a very helpful role in drawing attention to this issue and ensuring that they stay up to date. They are trained to follow protocols for even simple tasks, like changing passwords. It is extraordinary how people take these matters for granted, and everyone assumes that someone else will be impacted, which is simply not the reality. It’s similar to any good business practice. The teams are in alliance with the rest of the organization they support; if leadership recognizes this and provides support to the individual security teams, then everyone benefits. At NopalCyber, we offer complementary services to organizations. We can manage the entire security environment for an organization or complement and support the various teams they may have in place. We view this as a proactive security posture, enabling us to identify issues before they arise because we can see much more than an individual firm might perceive. We play a critical role in providing early warnings about things they might not be aware of from an offensive security perspective, and we can provide the necessary assistance for defense. Some organizations are uncertain about their security standing, and we help them gain clarity on their position. We conduct something called “attack surface discovery,” which produces an analysis from an outside-in perspective without any privileged access to show what an organization looks like from a potential hacker’s viewpoint. We can share those results, and when we do engage, we leverage the tools they already have while streamlining all the alerts into a single ‘pane of glass.’ With our reporting tool, Nopal360, we make this accessible on desktops and mobile devices 24/7. The best practice is to always have these protections in place, maintain awareness of potential attack sources, and act quickly and effectively. Legal professionals who understand their own personal liability as lawyers, as well as the company’s exposure from a risk management standpoint, can be immensely helpful allies in this overall strengthening of security posture.

Ari Kaplan: How can legal organizations utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to strengthen their cybersecurity?

Edward Chick: Virtually every law firm and legal practitioner worldwide is now aware of the benefits of various AI tools. I entered this space relatively early at IBM, engaging with legal applications using Watson over a decade ago, and I have seen remarkable results. Major benefits arise from leveraging AI, and the pace of advancement is accelerating; however, it also introduces certain risks. Malicious actors are using AI for hacking and exposing various cyber vulnerabilities. Moreover, employing AI often involves integrating data from large language models or utilizing third-party tools, which may require inputting sensitive information into these external systems that may not be entirely secure. Since lawyers and legal practitioners play an incredibly important role within an organization, they inadvertently raise risks associated with the use of AI, as these systems are often federated and rely on tools and data sources from outside to achieve business results, potentially exposing them to further risks. A key part of our mission at NopalCyber is to strengthen this posture and instill confidence in legal practitioners, so they can reap the benefits of these new tools while ensuring they do not create additional vulnerabilities. Our stance is to engage with these new innovations enthusiastically, embrace the benefits they offer—but with a vigilant awareness of cybersecurity realities.

Ari Kaplan: How does focusing on cybersecurity enable law firms to foster innovation?

Edward Chick: This will enable them to be more experimental and try various approaches. They should view cybersecurity exposure as a crucial aspect of engaging in innovation. Cybersecurity is essential to ensure that you’re prepared to embrace new innovations.

Ari Kaplan: How do you see cybersecurity evolving?

Edward Chick: It’s constantly changing every day, every hour, and trying to handle all this by yourself is truly challenging. The bad actors recognize that midsize firms don’t have the resources to manage this effectively. Our business value proposition is to assist those organizations in achieving a stronger security posture in a cost-effective manner that they would typically be unlikely to accomplish on their own, allowing them to focus on their core business. They should concentrate on what they excel at. Another critical aspect is engaging with their clients. It’s a good practice to initiate discussions with clients by stating that everything they’re going to do for that client incorporates cybersecurity awareness. Legal practitioners often lack knowledge about cybersecurity and don’t address it. However, if they become more informed and bring it up during their client interactions, we’ve seen that it significantly enhances engagement. It fosters trust, which is essential in the legal community. We see our role as helping organizations strengthen their relationships with customers, especially when acquiring new clients, as well as enhancing the existing portfolio of customers, some of whom they’ve served for decades. We’ve observed an engagement model where they reconnect with their clients and present the realities of cybersecurity in a way that they haven’t done before it resonates very well. This is part of a broader customer care journey and is quite powerful.

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Listen to the complete interview at Reinventing Professionals.

Ari Kaplan regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change and introduce new technology at his blog and on iTunes.

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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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3. 2 firms speak out after Trump seeks lawyer…

Law Firms

2 firms speak out after Trump seeks lawyer sanctions for ‘unreasonable and vexatious’ suits against US

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 24, 2025, 11:20 am CDT

Two law firms have issued statements criticizing President Donald Trump after he issued a memo late Friday calling for sanctions, ethics referrals and reassessment of security clearances against lawyers and firms that engage in “frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation” against the United States.

The two firms taking a stand are litigation boutiques Selendy Gay and Keker, Van Nest & Peters, Bloomberg Law reports. BigLaw firms, on the other hand, “have been quiet” since Trump issued executive orders revoking security clearances for three large firms because of their client representations, the article says.

One of the three targeted firms—Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison—has since reached an agreement with Trump that lifts the sanctions that he had imposed. The other two targeted firms are Perkins Coie, which has filed suit, and Covington & Burling.

Selendy Gay said it supports “Perkins Coie, Covington and the American Bar Association in their courageous defense of the rule of law.” The statement said Selendy Gay “rejects the notion that the government can punish lawyers for their choice of clients or threaten judges for presiding over cases adverse to the administration.”

The Keker Van Nest statement said an attack on lawyers who “represent unpopular people and causes, including in matters adverse to the federal government” is “inexcusable and despicable.” The statement also encouraged firm leaders to sign an amicus brief supporting Perkins Coie in its challenge to the executive order.

Trump’s latest memo targeting firms, which is dated March 22, cited the ability of the federal government to seek sanctions under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, agency regulations governing attorney conduct and state attorney ethics rules.

Far too many lawyers have ignored Rule 11’s ban on frivolous litigation “when litigating against the federal government or in pursuing baseless partisan attacks,” and Attorney General Pam Bondi should seek sanctions in such situations, according to the memo.

Bondi should also seek referrals to ethics regulators for conduct that appears to violate professional conduct rules, “including rules governing meritorious claims and contentions and particularly in cases that implicate national security, homeland security, public safety or election integrity,” the memo said.

In complying with the directive on ethics referrals, the memo said, Bondi “shall consider the ethical duties that law partners have when supervising junior attorneys, including imputing the ethical misconduct of junior attorneys to partners or the law firm when appropriate.”

The memo also directed Bondi to recommend additional steps, including reassessment of security clearances, for sanctionable or unethical litigation conduct in present litigation, or in litigation against the United States over the last eight years.

The memo said the immigration system is “replete with examples of unscrupulous behavior by attorneys and law firms.” Citing an example, the memo said “the immigration bar and powerful BigLaw pro bono practices frequently coach clients to conceal their past or lie about their circumstances when asserting their asylum claims, all in an attempt to circumvent immigration policies enacted to protect our national security.”

Another example cited in the memo was alleged “grossly unethical misconduct” by former Perkins Coie lawyer Marc Elias, now chair of the Elias Law Group, who hired the firm that compiled a “false ‘dossier’” with unsubstantiated allegations about Trump’s alleged connections. The allegations led to an FBI investigation.

The memo alleges that Elias “intentionally sought to conceal the role of his client—failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton—in the dossier.”

Publications covering Trump’s latest memo include the New York Times, the Washington Post, Law360 and Reuters.

Legal advocacy groups and at least 12 major firms have been involved in many of the 100-pluis lawsuits challenging executive actions, according to Reuters.

Selendy Gay is challenging the administration’s rejection of job protections for career government employees, according to Bloomberg Law. Keker Van Nest is involved in six ongoing suits against the Trump administration, the publication reports.

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3. Lateral hiring bounced back in 2024, especially…

Careers

Lateral hiring bounced back in 2024, especially for associates in BigLaw, new NALP report says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 26, 2025, 3:49 pm CDT

Lateral hiring of law firm associates increased nearly 25% in 2024, far outpacing a much smaller increase of about 2% in lateral hiring of partners, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Association for Law Placement.

Overall, lateral hiring in firms increased nearly 14%, according to a March 26 press release and a report in the April NALP Bulletin.

The increase was highest in firms with more than 1,000 lawyers, which had an overall 21% increase in lateral hiring and a 41% in lateral associate hiring.

The increase follows two down years “characterized by a retreat of BigLaw firms from the marketplace, which created an opportunity for savvy small firms to pick up some top-notch talent,” said Nikia Gray, executive director of the NALP, in the press release. “In 2024, the lateral market began to stabilize, and with that, we saw the BigLaw firms reentering the fray, largely driving the smaller firms out of the market.”

Lateral hiring increased 110.9% in 2021, decreased 11.5% in 2022, decreased 35% in 2023 and increased 13.9% in 2024.

The average number of lateral hires per office or firm was 16 in 2021, 15.9 in 2022, 9.3 in 2023 and 9.9 in 2024. The lowest average in the last 25 years was was 5.1 lateral hires per office or firm in 2009.

The report is based on a survey of 434 law offices that supplied hiring information on 4,295 lateral lawyers. Most of the respondents were from midsize and larger firms. Only 11% of the survey respondents came from firms of 250 or fewer lawyers.

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3. Lawyer accused of helping client defraud…

Criminal Justice

Lawyer accused of helping client defraud creditors is acquitted a second time

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 19, 2025, 8:52 am CST

A former Freeborn & Peters lawyer in Illinois has been acquitted of wire fraud a second time in a case stemming from his representation of a neighbor, the owner of a Chicago business that eventually filed for bankruptcy.

Federal jurors acquitted lawyer Edward Lee Filer in a retrial after deliberating a little more than one hour, Law360 reports.

Filer’s lawyer, Ronald Safer, told Law360 that the verdict “is a hard-fought testament to the integrity of Mr. Filer, who was unjustly accused in a case that should never have been brought against him.”

Prosecutors had alleged that Filer schemed to defraud creditors of the business, the Barsanti Woodwork Corp., in two ways, according to an appellate ruling in the case and a Jan. 14 pretrial ruling by a federal judge overseeing the retrial.

First, Filer was accused of helping the Barsanti Woodwork Corp.’s owner obtain control of the company’s secured bank debt at a discount through a nominal purchaser. Second, Filer was accused of engaging in transactions that transferred the Barsanti Woodwork Corp.’s assets to a new company secretly controlled by the company’s owner. The Barsanti Woodwork Corp. then filed for bankruptcy.

In Filer’s first trial, jurors convicted Filer of wire fraud but now-deceased U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber of the Northern District of Illinois granted a judgment of acquittal or, in the alternative, a new trial.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Chicago reversed that first acquittal in December 2022. The appeals court held that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence to support a wire fraud conviction, even though Filer did not profit, and some of his actions were inconsistent with an intent to defraud.

The 7th Circuit said the case should be reassigned to a new judge on remand.

Before the retrial, U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger of the Northern District of Illinois found that the government violated Filer’s attorney-client privilege when it obtained information about Filer’s confidential communications with the former general counsel at Freeborn & Peters. The government obtained the information while prepping the former general counsel for testimony, according to a Jan. 31 docket entry.

As a sanction, Seeger barred the former general counsel from testifying and barred evidence about documents withheld from the bankruptcy trustee, according to a Feb. 7 docket entry.

Freeborn & Peters merged with Smith, Gambrell & Russell in 2023. The merged law firm kept the Smith Gambrell name.

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3. This law firm will pay special spring bonuses…

Lawyer Pay

This law firm will pay special spring bonuses of up to $25K

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 19, 2025, 9:21 am CST

Knobbe Martens has announced that it will pay special spring bonuses of up to $25,000.

Law.com reported on the announcement, made in a Feb. 14 email.

Knobbe Martens will pay $2,500 to first year associates, $5,000 to second-year associates, $10,000 to third-year associates, $15,000 to fourth-year associates, $20,000 to fifth-year associates, and $25,000 to counsel and to associates with at least six years of experience.

The spring bonuses are in addition to year-end bonuses ranging from $5,000 to $30,000, according to Law.com.

The year-end bonuses were bigger in BigLaw, according to Above the Law’s associate compensation scorecard. Many law firms paid up to $115,000 in year-end bonuses.

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Reed Smith plans to open Atlanta office with 37 lawyers from these 2 law firms

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 5, 2025, 8:52 am CST

Reed Smith announced last week that it is opening an Atlanta office with 33 lawyers from Morris, Manning & Martin and four from Greenberg Traurig.

The group is made up of 15 partners, 20 associates and two counsels who will bring “a wealth of corporate, finance and emerging technology experience to the firm,” according to a Jan. 30 press release. Most of the lawyers will become part of Reed Smith’s global corporate group.

“Our firm is in growth mode,” said Casey Ryan, Reed Smith’s global managing partner, in the press release.

Ryan told Law.com that Reed Smith plans to “grow into a very full-service offering for our clients in the southeast and beyond.”

Thirteen of the partners are from Morris Manning as are 20 other lawyers (18 associates and two counsels), Law.com reports. According to Reuters, Morris Manning lost about 20% of the partners in its Atlanta office as a result of the move. Two partners and two associates are from Greenberg Traurig. A Reed Smith partner is also relocating to Atlanta.

In a statement, Simon Malko, Morris Manning’s managing partner, said the law firm remains in good financial health and committed to growth, according to Reuters.

Reed Smith has added 84 attorneys to its corporate group in the past year, Law360 reports.

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