Four senior Paul Weiss litigation partners have quit to launch their own firm, two months after the firm struck its controversial $40 million pro bono deal with the Trump administration.
The departures were announced on the same day Jenner & Block became the second firm to successfully challenge Trump's executive orders targeting law firms.
Four senior litigation partners have quit Paul Weiss to set up their own firm, two months after the US powerhouse struck its controversial deal with the Trump administration to reverse an executive order targeting the firm.
The group - Karen Dunn, Jeannie Rhee, Bill Isaacson and Jessica Phillips - are all based in Washington and rank among the firm’s most prominent litigators. Some have longstanding ties to the Democratic Party, with former roles in high-profile investigations and presidential campaigns. Dunn is co-chair of the firm's litigation practice.
Their exit, first reported by The New York Times, comes on the heels of Paul Weiss' March agreement with the White House, a deal that saw it agree to provide $40 million in pro bono work in exchange for the lifting of an executive order banning its lawyers from government buildings and seeking to terminate government contracts where Paul Weiss was providing advice.
The order, issued by Trump just days earlier, accused the firm of political bias and referenced its historic ties to lawyers involved in past investigations into his conduct. The leaving partners did not mention the firm's White House deal in their resignation email, according to The New York Times.
Big Law's split strategy
Paul Weiss’s decision to negotiate (along with a number of other major Big Law names, we should add) rather than litigate has put it at odds with a small group of firms, including Jenner & Block and Perkins Coie, that chose instead to challenge the orders in court. Those two firms have since won rulings blocking the orders, with judges calling them unconstitutional.
In March, Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp defended the deal as a necessary step to avoid "an existential crisis" that "could easily have destroyed our firm".
The timing of the partner exits is certainly noteworthy. News of the departures broke on Friday (23 May) just hours after a US judge ruled in favour of Jenner & Block, permanently blocking enforcement of Trump’s order against the firm - the second defeat for Trump after Perkins Coie's win earlier in May.
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