Biglaw

A Running List Of Lawyers And Law Firms Who Have Refused To Represent The President Of The United States

Donald Trump has somehow turned POTUS into a dog of a client self-respecting lawyers do not want to touch.

By Elie Mystal on March 26, 2018 3:06 pm

This weekend, we learned that Joseph diGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing, were conflicted out of representing Donald Trump in the ongoing investigation into his campaign and Russian interference. This inspired Trump to tweet out:

Hmm… that doesn’t seem true to me. It’s not as demonstrably false as some of the president’s other tweets. But by the same token, Trump can’t really prove that there are a bunch of respected lawyers and law firms out there dying to work for him.

What we  do know is that many lawyers who Trump has reached out to have told him no. They’ve decided that representing the President of the United States — which is usually a sought-after, high-profile engagement — is something their résumé can do without.

Here’s a running list of law firms and attorneys who have decided they don’t want to represent the president. Please send a note to [email protected] if there are firms that we’re missing or attorneys who have been approached that we just don’t know about. Here’s who we do know about:

  • Brendan Sullivan, Williams & Connolly: Sullivan represented Oliver North after the Iran-Contra scandal, but won’t represent Donald Trump.
  • Paul Clement, Kirkland & Ellis: Clement defended DOMA — the Defense of Marriage Act — and was a leading litigator in the constitutional challenges to Obamacare. But he won’t represent the leader of the Republican party.
  • Mark Filip, Kirkland & Ellis: Filip is a big-time white-collar defense lawyer who served as Deputy Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration. He was unwilling to return to government work to help defend the current president.
  • Robert Giuffra, Sullivan & Cromwell: Guiffra represents Volkswagon in its litigation about using devices to thwart clean-air standards, and defended UBS from disaffected Enron shareholders. Defending Trump’s financial dealings from Robert Mueller was apparently not something he wanted to do.
  • Emmet Flood, Williams & Connolly: Emmet Flood represented Bill Clinton in his impeachment hearing. Of course, Clinton was impeached (just not convicted), and we know that Trump prefers soldiers who never captured.
  • Robert S. Bennett, Hogan Lovells: Bennett represented Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones dispute. Seems relevant.
  • Theodore Olson, Gibson Dunn: Ted Olson represented George W. Bush in the Bush v. Gore case where the Supreme Court chose the American president. And he wants no part of Trump.

Again, these are just the people we know Trump has reached out to, based on published reports in the press. Who knows how many lawyers have been quietly asked, either directly or through networks, if they’d be interested.

While it’s, frankly, hilarious to look at all the well-respected attorneys who don’t want to get Donald Trump all over them, there is potentially a deeper issue. If all the good attorneys — the ones with reputations to preserve and ethics to uphold — refuse to represent the president, what’s left are the “bad” attorneys. The ones who don’t have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is.

Who did we miss? Let us know at [email protected]. We’ll update this post as necessary.

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.