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The Latest Legal Musings From The Hobbit-Loving, Capitol-Storming Attorney

Things have gotten 'downright bizarre.'

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Paul Davis (Image via Twitter)

Paul Davis is like the gift that keeps on filing bonkers motions. Davis first shot to Above the Law infamy when the then-associate general counsel for Goosehead Insurance attended the Capitol insurrection, and posted boasting about getting tear gassed and saying he was trying to enter the Capitol building on social media.

After he got fired from Goosehead (because logical and natural consequences are still a thing), Davis attempted to put his law degree to use by filing a lawsuit, along with lawyer and failed candidate for the Texas House of Representatives Kellye SoRelle, seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election but is somehow “not a 2020 presidential election fraud lawsuit.” (That distinction, for whatever it’s worth, appears to be the source of discord between the two attorneys that filed the original complaint.) The complaint lists every single member of the 117th Congress, every state governor and secretary of state, and Mark Zuckerberg as defendants, and alleges changes to election laws in advance of the 2020 election were in violation of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which resulted in civil rights violations. And it asks that all actions of the new Congress — including certification of Joe Biden’s win and the second impeachment of Donald Trump — be invalidated.

That wasn’t the end of the filings in the case. Yes, it’s still in its infancy but he went ahead and filed an amended TRO motion using the experiences of Gondor as precedent. For you non-nerds out there (are there any that read Above the Law?), that’s the FICTIONAL kingdom created by J.R.R. Tolkien. And because “Gondor has no king” that’s the example he uses as precedent for asking  a federal court to throw out the results of  the 2020 election.

But wait! There’s more! He also made a filing that went after the media for mocking his request to install the government of Middle-Earth in America, which only encouraged more ridicule. The judge has already signaled (unsurprisingly) that he’s skeptical of this dubious legal theory.

Then Davis got fired, again. There was apparently a split amongst the plaintiffs regarding what strategy to pursue (though, tbh, none of them sound like winners). And two camps — the SoRelle plaintiffs and Davis plaintiffs –were born. (Of course, Davis signed that filing with an email address at a domain name he doesn’t own, which is just BEGGING trolls to have fun with you, which, natch, they did.)

So, what the hell else could possibly be happing in this case?

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Well, Davis wants attorneys fees. He starts out by taking some potshots at one of his former clients (now a SoRelle plaintiff):

For reasons that are difficult to fathom, after Mr. Davis donated over 450 hours of pro bono time to Plaintiff B.G. and her organization, “Latinos for Trump,” B.G.— with no hint of preexisting animosity between B.G. and himself— suddenly sent Mr. Davis a scathing termination letter full of vindictive lies regarding concerns about non-existent “ethical issues.”
Mr. Davis, shocked, but suspecting some sort of political gamesmanship, given the nature of this lawsuit, sent a diplomatic response, extending an olive branch over apparent differences in strategy that Ms. SoRelle had suddenly began pushing on Mr. Davis the week of February 15, 2021 despite previous and consistent agreements among counsel, and even B.G. herself, not to pursue such frivolous strategies.

Then he begins to detail some of the behind-the-scenes action the led to the fracturing of the plaintiffs. Reading between the lines, it seems Davis wanted to stay away from election fraud claims and stick with the (also specious) HAVA/civil rights claims. But Davis believes some identified “Bob” (who is not a plaintiff or an attorney) is pushing alternate legal theories. There’s even a group text with Bob and Davis (as well as SoRelle and plaintiffs) and in that text Bob “scurrilously accused Mr. Davis of unethical behavior, in front of clients for whom he had been working 80-100 hours a week, for
free, and not getting much sleep.”

And then, THAT’S when Davis says, “This is when things went from strange to downright bizarre.” It seems Davis thinks SoRelle shared with this Bob character privileged communications, based on the accusations Bob made. But that’s not what SoRelle thinks:

Ms. SoRelle’s excuse was that Bob was “listening in on our comms!” Mr. Davis, now extremely concerned, began recording the rest of that conversation with Ms. SoRelle.5 To Mr. Davis’s shock, Ms. SoRelle clarified that she did not mean merely that Bob was listening on a speaker phone or similar. No, Ms. SoRelle actually indicated several times that “Bob” was illegally listening in to the calls between Mr. Davis and Ms. SoRelle and monitoring our text messages.

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Anyway, Davis now seeks $1,800 in attorneys fees for the “3.6 hours [he spent] in drafting and preparing to draft this response, including reviewing various related communications and call recordings.” But truly, the full filing is quite the ride, and available below. AND IT ISN’T EVEN DAVIS’S ONLY FILING.

Yesterday, Davis also filed a new complaint — what the internet is joyfully calling Gondor II. It’s basically a rehash of the original (and Tolkien-free) complaint. But we can only guess how many more filings this new case will bless us with.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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