Writers at Above the Law (and German prosecutors) aren’t the only ones interested in looking inside the black box that is Jones Day. Over the past few months, this powerful and prestigious firm with a penchant for secrecy has attracted a lot of mainstream media attention — due in large part to its famous client, President Donald Trump. (Jones Day and partner Don McGahn represented Trump during the presidential campaign, and after Trump’s big win, McGahn left the firm to become White House Counsel.)
The latest look inside Jones Day comes to us from Paul Barrett of Bloomberg Businessweek. After noting the raft of Jones Day lawyers who are filling the upper echelons of the Trump Administration, he points out this interesting fact:
Despite some of its attorneys’ enthusiasm for serving in the Trump administration, Jones Day’s lawyers contributed only $7,422 to his campaign, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. That compares with $267,899 given to Hillary Clinton.
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So even though JD is now becoming known as “Trump’s law firm,” it’s worth noting that many of its lawyers exhibit the typical liberal leanings of Biglaw attorneys.
Jones Day lawyers can certainly afford to support political campaigns. Barrett summarizes the firm’s financials:
Jones Day’s revenue of $1.94 billion in 2015 ranked sixth among the top 100 firms in the American Lawyer’s most recent rankings. Partner compensation at Jones Day varies widely; the average take-home pay of just over $1 million earned a ranking of only 72nd.
That might seem a little low by Biglaw standards. But Roy Strom of the American Lawyer, in a piece about Jones Day from earlier this month, points this out:
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Jones Day only identifies one class of partners—all of whom are equity, the firm said. “There are no nonequity partners,” said Jones Day spokesman Dave Petrou. “Suggesting anything to the contrary would not be accurate.” However, several ex-partners say that there are functional divisions in the partnership. Some partners, referred to as “percentage participants,” are paid based on a portion of the firm’s profits, according to three former partners. Another group of partners makes a flat salary, creating a structure virtually equivalent to the equity and nonequity tiers at many Am Law 100 firms, they say.
According to Strom’s sources, the Jones Day partners who participate in firm profits — the lawyers who would be “equity” partners at any other Am Law 100 firm — enjoy profits per partner of around $2 million. That figure is more in line with Jones Day’s high prestige (#18 in the latest Vault 100 rankings).
And the years ahead could be very good for the firm. As Paul Barrett writes:
Rivals say Jones Day will benefit from its prominence in the administration. Firms such as Jones Day “generally get their lawyers back having had high-level government experience and boosted their name recognition,” Karen Dunn, a partner in the Washington office of Boies Schiller Flexner who served as an associate counsel to President Obama, said in an email. William Burck, a former deputy counsel to President George W. Bush and a partner in the Washington office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, said in an email that Jones Day gave up some of its top talent to the administration: “Noel Francisco is one of the best appellate lawyers in the country, and Greg Katsas, the deputy White House counsel, is a brilliant legal thinker.”
If the Jones Day lawyers in the Trump Administration serve the president well, this will only burnish the firm’s brand further. Note how Jones Day recently displaced Skadden as the best brand in Biglaw — driven in part by JD’s high score in the “top of mind awareness” category.
Both Jones Day and Donald Trump seem to not like mainstream-media coverage — but one would be hard pressed to find a Biglaw firm and a political leader who are better than they are at getting it.
UPDATE (5:25 p.m.): Interested in still more discussion of Jones Day? Check out this Big Law Business podcast, featuring Paul Barrett and yours truly (in conversation with Josh Block).
Donald Trump’s Favorite Law Firm [Bloomberg Businessweek]
A Quiet Law Firm With a Famous Client [American Lawyer]
VW Defends Jones Day After German Prosecutors’ Raid [American Lawyer via Morning Docket]
Earlier: The Best Brand In Biglaw Isn’t Skadden Anymore
David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at [email protected].