And don’t we need them right now?
The New Republic spotlights attorneys forsaking big money to take on bigger bad guys.
The NYU School of Law currently is tracking 434 legal challenges to the Trump administration’s hollowing out of the Constitution. Those challenges, Matthew Wollin notices, involve a certain kind of lawyer, “Big Law” attorneys willing to give up big bucks to fight legal battles worth waging.
Trump 2.0 made a point of targeting those most able to restrain his grab for power and to defend the targets of his retribution campaign. Initially, many kowtowed to threats he issued by executive order. Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps went down early. “Then came Wilkie Farr, then Millbank; and then the rest of them began to fall like dominoes—including Kirkland & Ellis, which is the largest law firm not just in the United States but in the whole world.” Eleven of the country’s most presigious law firms capitulated and cut deals.
But some attorneys from those firms quit in disgust, giving up six- and seven-figure salaries to fight to preserve democracy. Imagine.
What began as a trickle became a flood:
This movement of lawyers away from the capitulating law firms was highly directed, with many of them ending up at organizations that were expressly devoted to fighting the fights that their former firms wouldn’t. This included not only existing firms but brand-new organizations devoted to defending the rule of law—organizations that are now handling much of this new wave of litigation on behalf of high-profile public servants suing Trump over their jobs.
Lowell & Associates is one such organization. It is a firm that was launched this past May, headed by a veteran Washington lawyer. Lowell quickly scooped up two of the aforementioned Skadden associates (Cohen and Frey) who publicly quit in protest. The firm’s self-stated mission? “The provision of pro bono and public interest representation in matters that defend the integrity of the legal system and protect individuals and institutions from government overreach and other threats to fundamental rights.” They are currently representing Lisa Cook, three senior FBI agents who were fired for improper political reasons, and Susan Monarez, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others.
The Washington Litigation Group is another firm that emerged in the months following Big Law’s Big Capitulation. It is a new “boutique non-profit firm” that was launched this past August, and whose stated mission is to “represent individuals and institutions who have been unlawfully targeted for exercising their rights.” It hired Nathaniel Zelinsky, an associate who left Milbank in the aftermath of the deal, and is currently representing three members of the Financial Oversight Management Board who were improperly relieved of their positions; Tara Twomey, who was ousted from her position as the director of the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees; and Cathy Harris, a former member of the Merit Systems Protection Board who was removed by Trump from her post, among others.
Wollin cites other attorneys and firms who made public that they placed their dedication to the law above Big Law’s commitment to profit. Rapidly shifting focus to defending democracy is a “striking devlopment,” Wallin believes, “particularly in an industry that is not exactly known for its rapid innovation.” Young attorneys not yet jaded by their profession now sort 850 prospective employers into “Caved to Administration,” “Complying in Advance,” “Other Negative Action,” “Stood Up Against Administration’s Attacks” and “No Response.”
It is difficult to say with certainty if it is the existence of these new organizations that has enabled so many public servants like Lisa Cook and Rebecca Slaughter to affirmatively take their fight to Trump, or whether these firms are simply good at being in the right place at the right time. But the degree to which this particular type of litigation has increased in tandem with these new organizations’ involvement certainly suggests that there is some correlation.
[…]
In short, by doing something so blatantly unconstitutional that nobody else ever dared to do it—attack lawyers for representing his political opponents—Trump inadvertently may have managed to do the one thing no one else thought possible: make highly paid lawyers stand up for what they believe in.
These heroes are not household names. If America survives Trump 2.0 perhaps Hollywood movies and TV shows will change that.
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Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?
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