Hunton & Williams Gets Colbert Report'ed

The cutting-edge information and security practice of Hunton & Williams is getting the firm lots of media attention these days — but not of the positive variety. The firm’s lawyers are getting coverage due to their information becoming insecure after a hacktivist group leaked emails they exchanged with security firm HBGary.

Last night, the firm’s logo was flashed several times on the Colbert Report, as Stephen Colbert named the firm as the link between the DOJ, HBGary, and Bank of America, in coming up with questionable tactics for undermining liberal activists. (See our prior post, Hunton & Williams Gets WikiLeaked.)

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, who we know isn’t a fan of the firm, was a guest on last night’s show, telling Colbert:

What is most significant here is that you have these plans that are clearly crossing a legal line, with very serious players involved. Law firms like Hunton & Williams are the most powerful in D.C. And no one at any point said, “Maybe this goes a little too far, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.” So willing to cavalierly to put a plan like this that clearly proposes illegal steps down on paper. It clearly shows that this sort of stuff in this world of corporate and government consortium of power is pretty normal, is par for the course.

Moral of the show: BigLaw + BigGov = Evil. Check out Colbert’s telling of the “techno thriller” tale (after the jump). Think Star Wars, with Bank of America as Darth Vader, HBGary and Hunton & Williams as commanders of the Imperial Forces, WikiLeaks as Princess Leia, and Anonymous as Han Solo….

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Hunton & Williams info and security practice partners Robert Quackenboss, John Woods, and Richard Wyatt Jr. aren’t just dealing with bad press. This week, one of the liberal activist groups that HBGary hoped to undermine — Stop the Chamber — filed an ethics complaint against the three with the D.C. Bar.

February 24th Episode [Colbert Report]
Complaint Accuses Hunton & Williams of Dirty Tricks [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times]
Hacked E-Mail Release Spurs Ethics Complaint Against Hunton Partners [American Lawyer]

Earlier: Hunton & Williams Gets WikiLeaked

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