Growing Discomfort at Law Firms Representing Trump in Election Lawsuits

As an attorney, several things need to be kept in mind when representing a client: (i) there is no obligation to represent any particular client, and (ii) as an officer of the court, you are duty bound not to allow a fraud to be perpetrated on the court.  Indeed, failure to fulfill the latter can lead one to suffer sanctions or disbarment.  When your client is Donald Trump, a pathological liar who relishes insane conspiracy theories, abiding by the latter obligation becomes difficult as law firms representing Trump are discovering as Der Trumpenfuhrer seeks to delegitimize his loss to Joe Biden.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the growing discomfort firms are experiencing which one can only hope will push them to withdraw from representing Trump.  Here are article highlights:

Like many big law firms, Jones Day, whose roots go back to Cleveland in the late 1800s, has prided itself on representing controversial clients.

There was Big Tobacco. There was the Bin Laden family. There was even the hated owner of the Cleveland Browns football team as he moved the franchise to Baltimore.

Now Jones Day is the most prominent firm representing President Trump and the Republican Party as they prepare to wage a legal war challenging the results of the election. The work is intensifying concerns inside the firm about the propriety and wisdom of working for Mr. Trump, according to lawyers at the firm.

Doing business with Mr. Trump — with his history of inflammatory rhetoric, meritless lawsuits and refusal to pay what he owes — has long induced heartburn among lawyers, contractors, suppliers and lenders. But the concerns are taking on new urgency as [Trump] the president seeks to raise doubts about the election results.

Some senior lawyers at Jones Day, one of the country’s largest law firms, are worried that it is advancing arguments that lack evidence and may be helping Mr. Trump and his allies undermine the integrity of American elections, according to interviews with nine partners and associates, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs.

At another large firm, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, based in Columbus, Ohio, lawyers have held internal meetings to voice similar concerns about their firm’s election-related work for Mr. Trump and the Republican Party, according to people at the firm. At least one lawyer quit in protest.

Already, the two firms have filed at least four lawsuits challenging aspects of the election in Pennsylvania. The cases are pending.

Jones Day has been one of Mr. Trump’s most steadfast legal advisers.

As Mr. Trump campaigned for president in 2016, a Jones Day partner, Donald F. McGahn II, served as his outside lawyer, leading recount fights in critical states. Mr. McGahn later became Mr. Trump’s White House counsel, before returning to Jones Day.

At the time, some senior lawyers at Jones Day objected to working closely for a polarizing presidential candidate, according to three partners at the firm.

The firm’s work for Mr. Trump has also garnered it unfavorable public attention. “Jones Day, Hands Off Our Ballots,” read a mural painted on the street outside the law firm’s San Francisco offices late last week.

Before the 2020 campaign, some partners at Jones Day said, they had to reassure clients that the firm’s representation of the Trump team would not influence the rest of the firm’s work, according to four partners. Lawyers at the firm have worked to promote gun control and have represented unaccompanied minors, including many detained by the federal government.

But the president’s inflammatory language undercuts the claim that Republicans seek merely to uphold statutory safeguards needed to validate the results’ credibility,” Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a longtime Republican elections lawyer who left Jones Day in August, wrote in The Washington Post the following month.

Six Jones Day lawyers said that given the small number of late-arriving ballots involved in the litigation, and the fact that they already had been segregated, the main goal of the litigation seemed to be to erode public confidence in the election results.

Jones Day did not respond to a request for comment.

In recent days, two Jones Day lawyers said they had faced heckling from friends and others on social media about working at a firm that is supporting Mr. Trump’s efforts.

A lawyer in Jones Day’s Washington office felt that the firm risked hurting itself by taking on work that undermined the rule of law. “To me, it seems extremely shortsighted,” the lawyer said.

Let's hope the firms put ethics and integrity ahead of money and decide to dump Trump.