Biglaw

David Boies Scores Coup With HUGE Lateral Pickup

Susan Estrich reunites with David Boies, years after they first worked together.

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David Boies

“I’ve been trying to recruit her for over 30 years,” David Boies told me. How did he manage to finally succeed? “I don’t know. Is it possible to just wear somebody down?” he said with a laugh.

However it happened, his decades of labor have finally paid off. Today, Boies Schiller announced that they have coaxed Susan Estrich to join the firm’s appellate practice in the Los Angeles office, completing Boies’s mission to work with Susan again after first working with her on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the late 70s.

Estrich doesn’t credit this move to being worn down. In fact, she may just be following the advice of her old boss. While she clerked for Justice Stevens, a pair of young lawyers working at the Judiciary Committee asked to interview her over lunch with the caveat that they wanted to meet her in the Supreme Court cafeteria. Estrich was pretty confident these two, a couple of fellows named David Boies and Stephen Breyer, were covertly angling to have lunch with Justice Stevens. After a delightful lunch, Justice Stevens told Estrich to accept the job offer the two had brought. “You should take it,” he said. “I think those guys have great futures.”

Supreme advice aside, Estrich sees the fit with Boies Schiller as a perfect match with her life philosophy: “so much of life is taking advantage of opportunities when you see them.” She described meeting up with Boies recently, “and it felt like coming home. He offered a chance for a new chapter for me, and I’m excited about a new chapter.”

And it’s a new chapter for Boies Schiller too. As Jonathan Schiller said, “I look forward to trying cases and arbitral hearings with Susan all over the world. Susan will also strengthen our growing California practice.” That California practice is a key part of this move. We’ve been watching the firm bolster its California presence over the last several months, and now they can add Susan Estrich to the office to help it grow.

Estrich may famously believe that people shouldn’t go to law school, but she seems to be making a pretty good career out of it herself. And she’s a little surprised at that fact, describing the bulk of her career as trying to do anything with her law degree except practice — jumping from her Supreme Court clerkship with Justice Stevens to the Senate to working on Ted Kennedy’s presidential campaign, managing the Dukakis campaign, and serving as a law professor.

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But despite trying to stay away from it, when she found herself joining private practice with Quinn Emanuel 10 years ago, she discovered to her surprise that “I actually like it.”

Susan Estrich

As Estrich departs Quinn Emanuel, she leaves a legacy of high-profile representations, including everyone from Home Depot to Mattel in its epic tussles over Bratz to Roger Ailes in his sexual harassment fight. At the time she took on Ailes, I quipped that, in that specific job, I wasn’t wishing her much success. But that’s a wholly different matter than blaming a lawyer for taking on a controversial client.

When it comes to criticism over controversial clients, Estrich has something else in common with Boies, who’s taken recent knocks in the mainstream press and, frankly, I don’t get it. Boies weathered a torrent of criticism over his representation of Harvey Weinstein and his work for Theranos. Sure, signing off on a security firm of former spies that, among other things, apparently interfered with the work of another Boies client was a mistake — one that Boies admits — but the bulk of the commentary around Boies these days seems more incensed that Boies would take on these hard cases at all. As a recent New York Times article explored, that reasoning never really resonated with most of us in the legal community, who take it as a given that lawyers have to zealously represent clients — often troubling ones. Lawyers may want to steer clear of representations that undermine their specific brand, but lawyers like Boies and Estrich are high-end, Biglaw advocates whose careers are built on representing to the hilt people and institutions that need legal help and are willing to pay for the best.

And with Susan joining the team, Boies Schiller further solidifies itself as one of the best from coast to coast.

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This is exciting news for both Estrich and Boies Schiller. Congratulations to all, including Justice Stevens, who carries his reputation for prescient career advice into a new decade.

David Boies Pleads Not Guilty [New York Times]

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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