'Maximum Damage': Law Firm Partners Learn The Hard Way Never To Put Offensive Things In Writing

It's impossible not to look at this law firm train wreck.

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.

This is about as bad as it gets when it comes to negative publicity. You don’t often see this level of misogynistic, racist and antisemitic content because people—even horrible people—know better than to put things in writing. The timing of it all, not just for John Barber and Jeff Ranen, but for the dozens of attorneys and staff who followed them to start the new firm, is atrocious.

— Zach Olsen, president of PR firm Infinite Global, in comments given to the American Lawyer on the trove of offensive emails that served as the undoing of Barber Ranen about a month after the firm was first formed after breaking away from Lewis Brisbois. Joshua Peck, owner and founder of Joshua Peck Legal Communications, also gave his thoughts to Am Law, and said of the situation that “it would appear Lewis Brisbois wants to do the maximum damage” since it was reportedly the firm’s PR team that sent Barber’s and Ranen’s antisemitic email exchanges to the Forward, a newspaper that covers of issues of note for the Jewish community.


Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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