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Jones Day has welcomed a number of Trump administration lawyers since the beginning of the year, who have sealed the Midwest’s firm’s reputation as a central player in Republican party politics.
The return of Jones Day partners began in earnest in April 2019 when Don McGahn returned to the firm of 2,500 lawyers based in Cleveland, Ohio, after serving as Donald Trump’s first White House attorney.
Between January and March this year, Jones Day welcomed at least seven more attorneys from the White House and federal agencies such as the Justice Department, according to firm announcements. Eighteen Jones Day lawyers worked for the Trump administration, according to ProPublica.
Some of the lawyers who returned received higher charges than before on Jones Day, which underscored the ties between the Trump movement and the firm, lawyers and recruiters said. They included McGahn, who now heads his government regulatory group, and Noel Francisco, the former U.S. attorney general, who heads the firm’s Washington office.
Federal records show that Jones Day has earned more than $ 25 million in fees from the campaigns of Trump, groups linked to the former president and the Republican National Committee since 2015. However, after representing the Republican Party of Pennsylvania in a mail voting dispute in the 2020 election, the firm said in a blog post that it “did not represent President Trump, his campaign or any party affiliated in any litigation alleging voter fraud.” .
Jones Day declined to comment.
Two former Jones Day attorneys said many of the firm’s attorneys had felt uncomfortable with their close ties to Trump’s world. Last year, Parker Rider-Longmaid, a partner in the firm, wrote to his colleagues to express their concern that Jones Day would lend “prestige and credibility to the project of an administration that seeks to undermine our democracy.” , according to The New York Times. In February of that year he marched to rival Skadden Arps.
Jones Day has also been hit by several well-known outlets in recent years, including antitrust partner David Wales in Skadden and real estate partner Michael Haas in Latham & Watkins in 2018; restructuring partner Scott Greenberg to Gibson Dunn in 2019; and corporate partner Ferdinand Mason at White & Case in March.
However, legal recruiters and the firm’s former attorneys said Jones Day’s ties to Trump are unlikely to affect the prospects of a company that has represented clients ranging from the National Rifle Association to Procter & Gamble, RJ Reynolds, McDonald’s, Chevron and Goldman Sachs. .
“Jones Day has been around for a long time and represents all sorts of clients in all sorts of places,” said Mark Jungers, a hunter-gatherer of elite American law firms. “The vast majority don’t care about representing Trump. . . It’s not necessarily a kind of stain forever, and not necessarily a stain. “
Jones Day, which took over the British firm Gouldens in 2003, is led by managing partner Stephen Brogan, one of America’s most powerful lawyers and one of the only seven leaders in the firm’s 130-year history. The litigant, who is in his 60s, has a great deal of discretion in naming his successor, an unusual feature for law firms, famous for committee leadership.
While his network of Trump administration alumni may only be rivaled by Kirkland & Ellis (last year, the highest-grossing law firm in the world), not all Jones Day lawyers are in favor of republicans. Most of Jones Day’s lawyer donations he went to Democrataccording to the research group Opensecrets.
Jones Day was founded in the 19th century in Cleveland, Ohio, and made its name representing companies in the industrial Midwest, including Standard Oil. It has become a source of power in Washington, where its prominence is symbolized by the proximity of its office to the United States Capitol.
The firm’s involvement in Republican politics dates back decades. One of the firm’s attorneys advised Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. He also defended Ronald Reagan in 1980 for an attempt to block him from receiving $ 29.4 million in federal election funds.
The firm’s relationship with Trump was forged by McGahn, 52, who met the real estate developer in 2014 and joined his candidacy for the White House in 2015, when his victory seemed unlikely. A product of Atlantic City, New Jersey, McGahn also had family connections to the future president through his uncle Patrick “Paddy” McGahn, a lawyer who helped Trump reduce bids at the beach games center during the 1980s. .
The company tends to outperform league tables by volume rather than by value. Unlike East Coast “White Coast” rivals like Cravath, Swaine and Moore, who set the bar for U.S. pay, Jones Day is as likely to recruit in Notre Dame as the Ivy League, experts say .
Brogan graduated from Notre Dame Law School and McGahn earned his bachelor’s degree from college.
Jones Day is notoriously secretive, especially about compensation, which varies greatly between lawyers. Its equity partners took an average of $ 1.3 million last year, which placed it behind another 71 law firms in the American Lawyer’s annual ranking of U.S. law firms. It was ranked 10th in terms of revenue, generating about $ 2.2 billion.
“Jones Day is one of those companies that is deeply opaque on the outside. Internally, the compensation of its partners is a complete black box,” said Bruce MacEwen, founder of law firm Adam Smith. Esquire. “Nobody knows what anyone is doing or even how their own compensation is determined. You have a visit at the end of the year that dictates what your team will be like and you don’t dare ask questions. “
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