Attorney Linda A. Kerns, a Family Law practitioner and FedSoc contributor from Philadelphia is doing her best to undermine democratic institutions — or at least to rack up billables for this lost cause — on behalf of the Trump campaign and she’s not happy that she’s getting flack from other lawyers for doing it. Specifically, Kerns is upset that a Kirkland & Ellis associate called her and left a message that “speaks for itself and by any measure falls afoul of standards of professional conduct,” though Kerns is unwilling to actually detail any of it in the filing. Now Kerns wants the court to sanction Kirkland:
It is sad that we currently reside in a world where abuse and harassment are the costs of taking on a representation unpopular with some. It is sanctionable when that abuse and harassment comes from an elite law firm representing the Secretary of State.
Kerns would very much like to speak with the manager.
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As it turns out, the actual “manager” at Kirkland dug into the matter and found out that the call came from “an associate from Kirkland & Ellis who is not part of the Firm’s litigation group, has never worked on this case, and was not aware of Kirkland’s role in the case.” Most likely, this call was prompted by the work of advocacy groups — like the Lincoln Project — urging people to call Trump’s lawyers of record to express disappointment in the ongoing pursuit of frivolous or right-up-to-the-line of frivolous lawsuits aimed at disenfranchising the people who appear to have handily own the election for Joe Biden. To that end, the Kerns motion exists mostly to chill speech from fellow attorneys by forcing them to worry that expressing their professional disappointment might land them in an internal firm conflict. As she puts it in her Reply brief:
In general, every lawyer at a firm is counsel to every client of that firm. That bedrock principle of the Rules is supposed to ennoble the profession and humble its practitioners. Yet one of the world’s largest law firms thinks its very size excuses the conduct of one of its lawyers. But size is not a defense.
There are a lot of contexts where this standard makes sense, but this is none of them. Representing an adverse party is not something the firm can shrug off. That a lawyer wholly separate from a matter expresses personal opinions on it is not.
Kirkland also challenged the idea that this voicemail was “absuive” and pledged to hand over a transcript. Wait, are they suggesting that Kerns is blowing this out of proportion in an effort to extract a petty pound of flesh from a Biglaw firm? Either by securing sanctions or posturing herself as a martyr when the judge rolls his eyes and denies the motion. No one would be that hyperbolically cynical, would they?
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But if there needs to be a rule saying that Kirkland & Ellis associates should not call opposing counsel and leave an abusive voicemail then all hope is lost.
Oh, no, apparently some people would.
(Filings on the next page…)
Joe 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. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.