Donald Trump’s return to power has generated chaos for much of the legal sector, and led to an exodus of top talent and clients from some of the firms that cut a deal with the White House after being threatened with presidential orders barring them from government work.
But for a few enterprising lawyers, the US president’s attacks on the rule of law and on federal workers have provided an unprecedented opportunity.
“I knew that there were going to be a lot of people who needed legal help who were caught up in this new era of trying to destroy the federal government,” says Clayton Bailey, a former attorney at the Department of Justice, who started a firm with fellow DoJ alumna Jessi Samuels last month, aimed at representing fired federal employees. “The response has been overwhelming,” he adds.
Bailey and Samuels, whose firm is called Civil Service Law Center, are among a growing number of former federal employees who have set up shop, hoping to win clients pitting themselves against the government.
Meanwhile, several former Big Law attorneys have also parted company with firms that rushed to settle with the Trump administration. Some law firms have offered to do millions of dollars’ worth of pro bono work approved by the government, which has raised disquiet among some clients at being represented by lawyers perceived as under the White House’s thumb.
Over the past few weeks, several former partners at Paul Weiss, the first firm to reach a deal with the administration, have left to form a new firm, including star litigators Karen Dunn, Bill Isaacson and Jeannie Rhee.
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Veteran defence attorney Abbe Lowell left Winston & Strawn in April to found his own firm, and quickly scooped up two former Skadden Arps lawyers who had protested against their firm’s agreement with the Trump administration. Lowell had previously represented Hunter Biden, son of the previous president Joe Biden, who was eventually granted clemency in December by his father following criminal convictions and a concerted Republican campaign against him.
“I’ve challenged federal and agency over-reach under every administration since President Reagan, but this administration’s intrusion is unmatched in scale and scope,” Lowell says. His new firm, Lowell & Associates, exists to “defend the rule of law when it’s most at risk”, he adds.
The fledgling firm’s roster of clients already includes whistleblower Mark Zaid, New York attorney-general Letitia James, former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, and those hit by cancelled funding from AmeriCorps, the federal agency that promotes voluntary work.
But the reluctance of elite law firms to provoke Trump’s wrath has also opened the door for smaller boutiques to take a lead.
“It is clear . . . that there is not as robust a response to this Trump administration as there was last time,” says Samuels, adding that the targeting of firms and individual lawyers is “creating a culture of fear”.
Greg Pinto and Pam Hicks, both former government employees, last month also founded a new firm, DC Law Collective, to address a perceived void in representation for federal staffers subjected to mass lay-offs, or outright retaliation, for refusing to do the administration’s bidding.
“Most of the folks who are experiencing [lay-offs] . . . they’re not going to get represented by Big Law in this, and they’re not going to be able to pay what big defence firms get,” Pinto says. “Plaintiff firms aren’t going to do it on contingency . . . because it’s not that kind of process.”
Even the pro bono arms of some elite firms feel constrained by who they can represent, Pinto adds, for fear of upsetting the administration.
Away from the mass firings, the current government is also creating a new line of work for lawyers with specific competencies.
Daniel Jacobson, who until January was the general counsel for the Office of Management and Budget, which manages the federal government’s money, has found a growing need in the market for lawyers with inside knowledge of how federal funding functions. “All the things that the new administration started doing really hit on my areas of expertise from my time in government,” he says.
In February, he and some former colleagues started a firm to challenge moves such as the unilateral cancellation of contracts by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. It is also challenging attempts to stop funds already approved by Congress from going to schemes that do not align with the Trump administration’s views on diversity and inclusion.
Jacobson’s firm largely represents charities and social enterprises and charges “fractions” of the rates fetched by much larger rivals. The lower cost “opens up a much bigger market because there are lots of companies and organisations that have some resources but not enough to pay the big giant law firms”.
Hicks says her firm will pursue a similar strategy. “We’ve really focused on trying to drive down the cost to individuals right through the volume of work,” she says.
“If you treat people fairly . . . and you figure out ways of leveraging what you’re doing to help multiple people at the same time, [you] can make it more affordable.”
But Hicks dismisses any suggestion that Trump’s eventual departure from office, or a moderation of his policy platform, would be a blow to firms such as hers.
“If this administration wants to change its mind and not do this to the federal workforce . . . we’re popping champagne,” she says.
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