Latest news with #PaulWeiss
Reuters
5 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
New law firms bank on 'boutique' edge
July 17 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to opens new tab.) As the biggest U.S. law firms keep up their battle for talent and market share and navigate new pressures in the Trump era, smaller, so-called boutique firms have been showing fresh signs of momentum. At least two new boutiques announced their launch this week, founded by former partners from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and A&O Shearman. Others formed in recent years are at the center of high-stakes, high-profile cases. And some lawyers exiting government service are creating their own new firms. One of the new entrants, Dunn Isaacson Rhee, officially debuted Wednesday with 26 lawyers, mainly from 1,000-lawyer, New York-based Paul Weiss. Co-founder Karen Dunn, an influential Democrat and litigator in Washington, made headlines in May when she left Paul Weiss, which has been in the spotlight since striking a deal with President Donald Trump in March to avoid an executive order targeting the firm over its past hires and its diversity policies. Eight other major firms followed Paul Weiss' lead, pledging nearly $1 billion in free legal work to causes Trump supports. Dunn Isaacson Rhee, whose founders did not cite Paul Weiss' dealings with Trump when leaving the firm, declined interview requests. The firm in Wednesday's announcement said its clients already include Amazon, Warner Bros. Discovery, Qualcomm, Google, Ultimate Fighting Championship and Meta. Also on Wednesday, former A&O Shearman partners David Esseks and Eugene Ingoglia announced the launch of Esseks Ingoglia, a New York-based litigation firm focused on investigations and white-collar defense work. Ingoglia in an email said both founders had worked at small firms and shared "an affinity for fighting for clients as part of a small tight-knit band of (merry) warriors." Legal industry observers and small firm founders said boutiques are thriving thanks to the attributes that set them apart from their large counterparts: fewer potential conflicts of interest between clients, greater freedom in case selection, and more flexible billing models -- departing from the billable hour model still dominant at big firms. Improvements in technology have also made it easier for fewer lawyers to handle more work, said Arlo Devlin-Brown, who left 1,500-lawyer Covington & Burling to start a new firm last month with a partner who departed Sidley Austin. "There's a lot of things a small firm can do now that would have been impossible even five years ago," said Devlin-Brown, an ex-prosecutor whose new firm, Treanor Devlin Brown, focuses on white-collar and cryptocurrency-related matters. Beth Wilkinson, who left Paul Weiss nearly a decade ago to co-found Wilkinson Stekloff, now with 45 lawyers, said corporate legal departments are increasingly comfortable turning to boutiques. Her firm eschews billable hours entirely, negotiating fees upfront to avoid billing disputes. Its clientele includes Pfizer, Microsoft, the National Football League, Exxon, 3M and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Billing flexibility combined with a winning record have also fueled the success of Bartlit Beck, a Chicago litigation boutique spun off from Kirkland & Ellis over 30 years ago, managing partner Jason Peltz said. Still, large firms remain dominant in big-ticket litigation. Many corporations prefer to rely on a small roster of full-service firms with deep benches, said Kristin Stark of consultancy Fairfax Associates. Many of the largest U.S. law firms continue to post record profits and revenues year after year, and have continued to grow larger. Stark said there may be a current surge in spin-offs from big firms, but added, "I do not believe that large corporate law departments are increasing their openness to using boutiques." Leaving a large firm can make it easier to take on politically sensitive matters. Prominent litigators Paul Clement and Erin Murphy left Kirkland & Ellis in 2022, shortly after Kirkland said it would no longer represent clients in pro-Second Amendment rights matters. Since then, their firm Clement & Murphy has taken on a range of consequential cases for major clients including Chevron. Despite Clement's conservative bona fides, it has signed on to cases opposing actions by the Republican Trump administration. Its founders did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Ellen Zucker, a Boston lawyer who founded her own firm after her old one Burns & Levinson closed last year, said it was "liberating" not to need to struggle for buy-in from management to commit to a case or cause. When Zucker decided to sign a brief supporting other law firms suing the Trump administration over his law firm executive orders, "I had one conversation with my partners, and we signed on," Zucker said. Beyond the spinoff trend, some former government lawyers have formed their own private firms since Trump took office and set out to shrink the federal bureaucracy. Three attorneys who left the U.S. Federal Trade Commission this year joined with a former U.S. attorney last month to launch a new plaintiffs law firm, Simonsen Sussman, focused on antitrust work. "We saw a real market opportunity," said co-founder Kate Brubacher, who served as Kansas' U.S. Attorney during the Biden administration. "Even at large firms, people who want to do this work are hindered by conflicts," she said. In May, two former Justice Department lawyers launched the Civil Service Legal Center, a law firm founded to "fight against the Trump administration's attempts to dismantle the civil service." The firm aims to grow, but "right now it's just the two of us," co-founder Clayton Bailey said. -- When Taylor Wettach launched a campaign to represent Iowans in the U.S. Congress earlier this month, he made his decision to resign from New York-founded Simpson Thacher a centerpiece of his announcement. Wettach, a Democrat running to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the 1st District of Iowa, released a campaign video of himself holding a banker's box in an office elevator, touting what he said was his decision to quit over Simpson Thacher's agreement with Trump to avoid his administration's crackdown on law firms. Wettach, an Iowa native, told Reuters he viewed the targeting of law firms and the deals that some firms made with the White House as an attack on the rule of law. He said his campaign is rooted in the same motivations that made him become a lawyer. "I knew that I wanted to be able to fight for fairness and the dignity of all people and make sure that everybody can get a fair shake," he said. Wettach said he worked on national security and trade issues at Simpson Thacher, as well as pro bono work involving refugees. Simpson Thacher spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Miller-Meeks referred Reuters to the National Republican Congressional Committee. "East Coast Elitist Taylor Wettach just gave up his posh city life to join the clown car Democrat primary in Iowa's First Congressional District," NRCC spokesperson Emily Tuttle said in a statement. -- Burford Capital has completed a $500 million debt offering that its CEO Christopher Bogart said is the largest-ever for the litigation funder. "The fact that we are continuing to grow our capital reserves just speaks to our commitment to the market, and that we are very much open for business around the world," Bogart told Reuters. The 42 active U.S. commercial litigation funders had a total $16.1 billion assets under management last year, according to an annual report from litigation finance advisory firm Westfleet Advisors that was released in March. Read more: Clock ticks for Jackson Walker, US Trustee in ethics case involving ex-judge Litigation funders get a boost in budget bill drama, court wins How much does Hunter Biden's lawyer charge?
Business Insider
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Business Insider
Obama slams Big Law attorneys who won't fight Trump because they want to 'finish that kitchen rehab' at their Hamptons homes
Former President Barack Obama ripped Big Law firms for caving to the Trump administration just to protect their careers and fund their lavish lifestyles. Obama was speaking at a private fundraiser in New Jersey on Friday when he expressed disappointment at how some of the country's top law firms had "set aside the law" in the face of President Donald Trump's attacks. Obama said some lawyers were giving way to Trump not because they were "going to be thrown in jail, but because they might lose a few clients and might not be able to finish that kitchen rehab at their Hampton house." "I'm not impressed," Obama said, per remarks obtained by MSNBC. Obama's ties to Big Law go back to his Harvard Law School days. After his first year of law school, the former president worked as a summer associate at Sidley & Austin. Before entering politics, Obama worked as a civil rights attorney at the litigation firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland. Since February, Trump has issued executive orders targeting Big Law firms like Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, and Covington & Burling. In his orders, Trump accused the firms of weaponizing the judicial system and stripped them of their security clearances. He also ordered reviews of each firm's contracts with the government. Some law firms, such as Paul Weiss and Kirkland & Ellis, struck deals with Trump and promised to do pro bono legal work for conservative causes. Others, like Perkins Coie and WilmerHale, chose to fight back and filed lawsuits against the Trump administration. In his remarks, Obama took aim at universities that chose to find room for compromise with Trump. Obama's alma mater, Columbia University, gave in to the administration's demands after it slashed $400 million in federal funding. The Trump administration said the cuts were because of the university's failure to combat anti-semitism when protests over Israel's war in Gaza erupted on campus. "If your core mission, if your core value is to teach, you may teach without compromising values of academic independence. Yeah, you may lose some grant money temporarily. That's why you have those big endowments," Obama said on Friday. Obama has continued to be a vocal critic of Trump and his administration. Last month, Obama told attendees at The Connecticut Forum on June 17 that the US was on the verge of becoming an autocracy under Trump. "We're not there yet completely, but I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that," Obama said.
Yahoo
29-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Inside the fallout at Paul, Weiss after the firm's deal with Trump
Three months ago, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was under attack. The global law firm had just become the target of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump directing the firm and its clients to be cut off from government contracts, and for firm lawyers to lose their security clearances and be restricted from entering government buildings or dealing with federal employees. Paul, Weiss wasn't the first firm to be the focus of such an executive order, but it would go on to be the first to negotiate a deal with the White House in order to get it lifted. At the time, the firm's leader Brad Karp said he was trying to save his team from an 'existential crisis.' Since then, the firm has endured. But the decision to strike a deal has led to high-profile departures among partners and drawn condemnation from Democrats and others in the legal community. After Karp made a deal with Trump, at least 10 partners in the litigation department have resigned from the firm, including several with close ties to Democrats. A group of the departing partners have joined together to start their own firm where they will continue to represent tech giants like Meta and Google, and another has jumped ship to one of the four firms that chose to fight the administration in court. While the firms that have fought Trump have been vindicated in multiple swift rulings, Paul, Weiss has been dealing with fallout in the aftermath of the deal, according to three former attorneys and five others with knowledge of the firm granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal dynamics. 'They made a calculated decision,' said Elizabeth Grossman, executive director of government watchdog group Common Cause Illinois and a former Paul, Weiss associate who helped organize alumni opposition to the deal. 'They were thinking about their bottom line… I think what we've seen is that they made the wrong decision.' Founded 150 years ago in New York, Paul, Weiss is now one of the largest and most profitable firms in the world, with more than 1,000 lawyers in offices across North America, Europe and Asia and an annual revenue of $2.6 billion. The firm touts its pro-bono work and its lawyers were frequently involved in cases challenging controversial policies during the first Trump administration. The firm's commitment to 'not adopt, use or pursue any DEI policies' and provide the equivalent of $40 million in free legal work to 'support the administration's initiatives' would become the framework used by eight other law firms to strike similar deals committing a total of nearly $1 billion in pro bono work to causes favored by the president. Being the first firm to fold meant Paul, Weiss secured a better deal than those who came later, but it also turned the firm into a lightning rod for anger at Big Law's failure to stand up to Trump. Karp and a spokesperson for Paul, Weiss declined to comment. The first major personnel blow for Paul, Weiss came at the end of May, when co-chair of the litigation department, Karen Dunn, announced that she and three of her colleagues would be leaving to start a new litigation boutique firm. Dunn has had close ties to Democrats for years and previously worked as an associate White House counsel under former President Barack Obama. She also helped former Vice President Kamala Harris prepare for her 2024 general election debate with Trump. Leaving with Dunn was Jeannie Rhee, who previously represented former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a lawsuit dealing with her use of a private email server and worked under special counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election. During the week between Trump's order targeting Paul, Weiss and the announcement of the deal, the firm's management committee, including Dunn and Rhee, prepared to challenge the order in court, according to three of the people with knowledge of the firm. The group, led by chair of the firm's Supreme Court practice, Kannon Shanmugam, worked on a motion asking a judge to immediately halt enforcement of the order while litigation played out, but the effort was tabled in favor of making a deal, one of the people said. A second one said that in her capacity as a member of the management committee, Dunn was involved in the conversations about making a deal with the White House. That person said Karp consulted the firm's partnership in deciding whether to make a deal, and the 'vast majority' of the more than 200 partners were in favor of it at the time. Dunn began telling lawyers inside and outside the firm of her plans to leave in the days and weeks following the deal, according to one of the people. Dunn and Rhee declined to comment. Shanmugam did not respond to a request for comment. In recent weeks, five additional partners and at least eight associates, the majority of whom worked with Dunn at her previous firm and moved to Paul, Weiss around the same time as she did, have left Paul, Weiss to join Dunn and her colleagues at the fledgling firm Dunn Isaacson Rhee. Dunn and her partners have filed notices in multiple ongoing cases indicating they will continue representing big tech clients they were already representing at Paul, Weiss. 'Paul, Weiss used to be the gold standard for litigation,' said Bryson Malcolm, founder of legal recruiting firm Mosaic Search Partners. 'I think that reputation is waning.' Earlier this month, Paul, Weiss lost another recognizable name when the former chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Damian Williams, decamped to Jenner & Block, a much smaller firm by annual revenue. That firm had also been targeted by an executive order but successfully fought the administration in court instead of making a deal — something Williams seemed to allude to in the announcement of his move. 'I've seen firsthand how this firm expertly tackles the toughest cases and lives its values,' Williams said in a press release. 'I'm excited to join a team with an extraordinary depth of legal talent that doesn't shy away from hard fights — and delivers results that matter.' Williams declined to comment. Paul, Weiss has also lost one of its two former Obama Cabinet secretaries to retirement since the deal. Former Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson retired last month to take a position as co-chair of Columbia University's board of trustees. Meanwhile, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch remains at the firm. Johnson and Lynch did not respond to requests for comment. Trump's stated reasons for initially targeting the firm were the hiring of Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney's office who previously investigated Trump's hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, Rhee's work on a civil lawsuit against individuals involved with the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and an allegation that the firm was engaging in racially discriminatory hiring practices. (In a firm-wide email following the deal, Karp wrote, 'While retaining our longstanding commitment to diversity in all of its forms, we agreed that we would follow the law with respect to our employment practices.') The threat of future investigation hangs over all the firms that struck deals. Sixteen House Democrats sent letters to Paul, Weiss and the eight other deal-making firms in April, seeking details of the agreements and suggesting that they may violate state and federal criminal laws against bribery. 'We would never do anything to compromise our ability to advocate zealously on behalf of our clients, and we certainly reject any suggestion that any element of the agreement is contrary to law,' Karp wrote in a response letter obtained by POLITICO. Meanwhile, all the firms that have fought Trump's orders have so far won in court. Four federal judges have struck down Trump's executive orders aimed at firms Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey as unconstitutional. The Justice Department has not taken steps to appeal those rulings and the window of time for them to do so will soon close. Despite those legal victories, some observers caution that it may be too soon to tell if the threat to firms that fought back has truly passed. Trump's orders are no longer in effect, but federal agencies can still come up with alternative reasons to steer contracts away from disfavored firms and their clients. And companies seeking government approval for mergers may prefer to use Paul, Weiss or another deal-making firm to represent them in that process over one that fought that administration. 'If it's being done without saying that it's being done, it's super hard for courts to police,' said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who studies law and public policy. There may be more departures to come for Paul, Weiss. The nature of profit distribution at large firms gives partners an incentive to stay through the end of the fiscal year and the process of moving firms for partners is more lengthy and complicated than simply finding a new job willing to hire them. 'It's a very financially unattractive time to leave and you need several months to make the move anyway,' said a partner at a separate firm granted anonymity to speak candidly about the industry. And while top talent walks out the door, it may prove harder for Paul, Weiss to attract the next generation of lawyers. 'Students are plugged in in a way that they've never been before and they're tracking all this,' Malcolm said. 'I don't really see a situation where a student would choose Paul, Weiss over any of its peers that didn't have a similar fallout. Even if you're just thinking pragmatically and you're not really tied to the morality of it all, it's just very clear Paul, Weiss is not a safe option compared to the others.' According to numbers obtained by POLITICO, Paul, Weiss' acceptance rates for this year at their major offices including New York and Washington are in line with their typical acceptance rates over the past five years. 'Ultimately we're a talent business,' said the partner at the separate firm. 'It may not be something you feel now, but it could be something you feel three or four years from now.'
Fast Company
13-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Law firms have a new way to attract clients and talent: Stand up to Trump
Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. Elite law firms like Paul Weiss and Jenner & Block may not advertise in traditional ways, or for a mainstream audience. But they and a handful of other prominent white-shoe firms are in the middle of an unprecedented brand test right now. At issue is how best to respond to pressure from the Trump administration and how that response affects their reputation. That has turned into a branding moment for these firms—whether they like it or not. The full verdict isn't in yet. But those who have chosen to fight executive orders designed to punish firms that President Trump apparently dislikes seem to be faring better, scoring early legal victories and burnishing an image of bravely standing up for principle. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that those who have cut deals with the administration (promising a collective $940 million in pro bono work) are, reputationally and perhaps substantively, faring worse: losing partners, angering some clients, and even being labeled ' The Yellow-Bellied Nine ' by critical peers. The test began back in March, when Trump signed a series of executive orders restricting security clearances for lawyers and employees of various firms that had represented his perceived enemies or political opponents—a move that would severely cut into their business. The prominent firm Perkins Coie, which among other things had represented Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, responded by suing the administration. The order was swiftly blocked by a judge who called it ' chilling.' Other targeted firms, including Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey, have won similar blocks. Paul Weiss, one of the most storied and powerful law firms in the world, was among the first to take a different path: In exchange for the administration agreeing to lift an executive order targeting the firm, it agreed to perform $40 million in unpaid legal work for mutually agreed-upon causes and matters. The deal startled (and was immediately criticized by) many legal observers. (In a firm-wide memo, its executive chairman defended the settlement: 'The resolution we reached with the Administration will have no effect on our work and our shared culture and values.') Lately, Paul Weiss has made headlines for losing several high-profile attorneys, including the cochair of its litigation group, who left with three other partners to form their own firm, and a former U.S. attorney who went to Jenner & Block, which has sued the administration. Eight more major firms—including Skadden, Kirkland & Ellis, Simpson Thacher, and Latham & Watkins—cut similar deals. Many others have remained above the fray, declining, for example, to join an amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie or others fighting the administration in court. Law firms are often paid to help mitigate risk, but in this case some may have underestimated the risk of brand damage. In the latest sign of tangible reputational fallout, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that 'at least 11' major companies, including Oracle and Morgan Stanley, are withdrawing business from firms that cut deals to get executive orders lifted or that are otherwise supporting the government in what some view as an effort to warp the legal system. As one client cited by The Journal put it: We prefer to work with law firms willing to fight. More broadly, the divergent response to the executive orders continues to draw scrutiny and controversy within the profession, with the potential to affect both recruiting and retention. Above the Law, a snarky but serious online publication popular with younger lawyers, coined the 'Yellow-Bellied Nine' moniker, and has introduced a ' Spine Index ' that rates major firms' responses to the executive orders (and notes, in addition, those that have scrapped DEI efforts). A survey of its readers found that a vast majority supported firms fighting the orders, and felt that 'law firms who make agreements with the administration are giving in to extortion, which sends a bad message to the entire profession.' Still, while the firms fighting back have been winning new clients and winning in the courts (so far), it's hard to gauge how that will ultimately affect their business: Clients who would rather steer clear of potential trouble with Trump aren't likely to be very public about distancing themselves from the conflict. Meanwhile, as Above the Law has noted, neither the administration nor the firms that agreed to deals involving pro bono promises have offered up much detail or any sense of timing about those commitments. For Trump, that may be a matter of biding time; for the firms, it may be in hopes that the matter will fade from the court of public opinion.
Mint
10-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Paul Weiss Strategy Tested as Partners Exit Post-Trump Deal
Paul Weiss leader Brad Karp spent more than a decade building his firm's deals practice to an elite level matching its litigation work. A deal he struck with President Donald Trump threatens the balance between the two. The Wall Street firm lost a string of litigation partners following the March 20 deal with Trump to provide $40 million in free legal services. The move got Paul Weiss out from under an executive order that Karp said threatened the firm's survival. Jeh Johnson, the prominent Democrat and former Homeland Security Secretary, last month retired from the firm where he'd spent parts of 40 years. Days later, a high-profile group of litigators, including Karen Dunn, Bill Isaacson, and Jeannie Rhee, hit the exit to launch their own firm, which numbers seven ex-Paul Weiss partners so far. Also gone: Damian Williams, the former Manhattan US Attorney who bolted from Paul Weiss after six months on the job to join Jenner & Block, a firm that successfully fought off a Trump executive order in court. All have Democratic ties. The departures accentuate a long-term trend at Paul Weiss, with the firm shifting its focus to lucrative work for private equity giants such as Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, and Bain Capital. That's brought greater headcount, revenue, and profitability, but also challenged the firm's identity. 'Paul Weiss made a decision a while ago to invest in their corporate work, and this is just a further development in that trajectory,' said Alisa Levin, a veteran recruiter with Greene-Levin-Snyder Legal Search Group. 'Nobody has left yet from the corporate side and I doubt that anybody will.' A Paul Weiss spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. The firm under Karp has changed its compensation model so that partners don't know what others earn, and it added a second tier of partners who don't share in the firm's profits. Some of those who departed for the new Dunn firm were in the income partner category, according to three sources familiar with the firm. The corporate practice now outnumbers the litigation group, data from Leopard Solutions show. Karp, who has worked at Paul Weiss for more than 40 years, rose to prominence as a litigator and led the firm's courtroom practice before becoming chairman in 2008. He's become a go-to lawyer for the National Football League and built a reputation counseling major banks including Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. 'I went to Paul Weiss because of the reputation as the finest litigation, white collar defense firm in the county,' he said in a 2024 podcast interview with Quinn Emanuel leader John Quinn. Karp, who snagged Apollo as a major client on the litigation side, identified public M&A, private equity, and restructuring as three practice groups Paul Weiss needed to develop when he took the reins. 'You wouldn't be at the top of the national or New York market if you were a very successful litigation defense boutique,' Karp said in the podcast interview. 'We just had to be broader than that, and we had to be more resilient than that.' He scored a coup bringing onboard Scott Barshay from Cravath Swaine & Moore in 2016. Barshay, as corporate department head, holds great sway within the firm, bringing in major business and leading some of its recruitment efforts. Barshay was among a small group of partners Karp consulted on how to respond to Trump's executive order, the New York Times reported. Tension between litigation and corporate groups is not unique to Paul Weiss. Kirkland & Ellis, the world's largest firm by revenue, was long known as a Chicago-based litigation shop before its corporate practice shot to the top of the industry on the back of the surging private equity industry in the mid-to-late 2010s. Kirkland is among the nine firms that made deals with Trump to avoid executive orders, pledging nearly $1 billion in free legal services. Some Kirkland alumni describe litigation as an add-on 'service' for corporate clients, a view that firm leader Jon Ballis, has pushed back against, saying that the firm's litigation group would be larger than most law firms based on its revenue and is comparatively profitable to the firm's corporate work. Kirkland's litigation group has focused its work on major matters and been more receptive to alternative fee arrangements, which can bring large profit margins. Paul Weiss' litigators have maintained a lofty position in the industry. Top litigators include Ted Wells, former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and appellate practice leader Kannon Shanmugam. Many of the lawyers who departed had strong ties to Democrat politics, with Dunn prepping presidential candidate Kamala Harris for her debate with Trump, and Williams serving in a role appointed by President Joe Biden. Karp told attendees at a litigation partner lunch last week that six of the firm's 10 largest ongoing matters are litigation-related and none of those matters was generated or worked on by any of the partners who recently departed the firm, according to three people who attended the meeting. 'Paul Weiss is an institution, and the firm's litigation team will continue on as a top-caliber group despite these departures,' said Jon Truster, a partner at recruiting firm Macrae. Dunn and Isaacson joined the firm in a high-profile move from Boies Schiller Flexner in 2020. The group was known for its relationships with Big Tech clients such as Apple Inc., Oracle Corp., Facebook Inc., Uber Technologies Corp., and Inc., which it continued to represent at Paul Weiss. Dunn also pursued pro bono work with Paul Weiss-like vigor, including representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit over the Charlottsville 'Unite the Right' rally. The firm's commitment to pro bono work dates back at least a century. Paul Weiss attorneys worked to overturn the wrongful conviction of 'the Scottsboro boys,' a group of Black teenagers in the 1930s who were falsely accused of raping a White woman in Alabama. The firm opened an office in San Francisco—a historically difficult market to crack—shortly after the arrival of Dunn and Isaacson, signaling the hires' impact. Paul Weiss' Silicon Valley presence today numbers less than 40 lawyers, and it has only made one internal partner promotion there since the office opened. Dunn appears set to continue her work with major clients. She's notified courts in cases representing Google and Qualcomm of her change to a new firm, staying on the cases alongside other Paul Weiss lawyers. She did withdraw from one case this week. She is no longer working alongside Paul Weiss lawyers representing the city of Springfield, Ohio in a pro bono case against the Blood Tribe, a group labeled as neo-Nazis by the Anti-Defamation League that rallied in the city in 2024 amid a campaign of conspiracy theories directed against its Haitian community. To contact the reporters on this story: Roy Strom in Chicago at rstrom@ Justin Henry in Washington DC at jhenry@ To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chris Opfer at copfer@ John Hughes at jhughes@ Alessandra Rafferty at arafferty@ This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
