The world's largest law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, has just announced that, if they represent a client, they endorse that client's views
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john adams represented the British soldiers charged with murder after the Boston Massacre, and got all but two acquitted. John Adams would not be hired by Kirkland and Ellis today.
When questioned on their representation of terrorists, dictators, and other hideous creatures, firms like Kirkland and Ellis have always pretended to be adhering to the highest principles of law, and honoring their duty to zealously represent anyone, no matter how despicable the cause, no how horrendous the charges, so long as their bills were paid.
I doubt anyone actually believed that, but it was a comforting illusion, and boosted our appreciation for the genius of Anglo-Saxon Jurisprudence, and the multi-millionaire Ivy Leaguers preserving it. No longer.
Old and busted: Everyone has the right to effective legal counsel. New hotness: Don’t take clients that are politically incorrect — even when they’re right. Paul Clement and Erin Murphy won a landmark Second Amendment case yesterday at the Supreme Court in NYSRP v Bruen, only to find out that they and their other clients in the firearms industry were no longer welcome at their firm.
Law firm Kirkland and Ellis LLP released a statement late yesterday that celebrated the win in Bruen and praised Clement and Murphy as “valued colleagues.” They then kicked them to the curb by telling the pair that they would no longer handle any Second Amendment cases because other clients complained about it. Clement and Murphy refused to drop their clients, and so had to leave the firm after a victory at the highest level for their firm:
Discord over gun rights erupted within the law firm that secured Thursday’s Second Amendment victory at the Supreme Court, with Kirkland & Ellis LLP announcing shortly after the decision that it would no longer take firearms cases and that it was parting ways with the two star partners who won the case.
After a Kirkland news release praising Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, and Erin Murphy, the two announced they were opening their own firm.
“Unfortunately, we were given a stark choice: either withdraw from ongoing representations or withdraw from the firm,” Mr. Clement said. “Anyone who knows us and our views regarding professional responsibility and client loyalty knows there was only one course open to us: We could not abandon ongoing representations just because a client’s position is unpopular in some circles.”
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After recent mass shootings, other Kirkland clients began expressing reservations over the firm’s work for the gun movement, a person familiar with the matter said. Kirkland “started getting a lot of pressure post-Uvalde, hearing from several big-dollar clients that they were uncomfortable,” this person said. “Several partners agreed that they should drop that representation.”
So, the next time you read of a lawyer or law firm representing some horrific client, like the Guantanamo terrorists, or Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaevsay, ANTIFA-rioters, or some corrupt African dictator, you can safely assume that the firm paying those lawyers has examined the case, and approved of both the acts complained of and the client itself.
Nice going, guys.
