It’s hard to find a more reliable flow of cash to Democrats than the donations that flow in year after year from lawyers and law firms. Lawyers are typically educated, wealthy and cosmopolitan, the ideal profile for a Democratic donor, and they’re inclined to respect the rule of law and have therefore swung pretty hard against Donald Trump. But even in the pre-Trump era, the legal industry’s money was largely shaded blue, partially because Republicans have long backed tort reform, which would limit the payouts in lawsuits and therefore reduce attorneys’ fees. For years, the American Association for Justice, an organization of trial lawyers, has lobbied against those GOP efforts and donated millions to candidates, the vast majority of them Democrats.
Beyond the AAJ is a constellation of big law (or "Biglaw") firms whose employees contribute a combined hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats every election cycle. Most, though not all, of this money ends up in the pockets of the more moderate wing of the party (Joe Biden’s campaign was a major recipient of legal cash during the 2020 primary), which isn’t surprising, given that the personal and professional proclivities of most lawyers run toward the establishment side of things. And since lawyers often end up entering electoral politics, a good deal of giving from the legal industry is personal, with firm employees supporting members of Congress who were once their co-workers.
Below is a rundown of five law firms that donate significantly to the Democratic Party. All of these numbers are drawn from campaign finance data (as of October) compiled by Open Secrets, notably showing the donation priorities of employees of these firms, not money given by the firms themselves.
Paul, Weiss et al.
The New York-based firm is, like the other companies on this list, the dictionary definition of Biglaw, with hundreds of lawyers on staff, an immense corporate practice, and tons of experience arguing before federal appellate courts and the Supreme Court. The firm’s website highlights its extensive pro bono work on behalf of immigrants and other marginalized groups, but it also (naturally) does a brisk business with clients liberals despise. (In one recent example, Paul, Weiss secured a 5-4 victory at the Supreme Court when conservative justices ruled that the president could fire the director of the Consumer Finance Director Bureau at will.)
Most controversial is the firm’s work for fossil fuel companies, including Chevron and ExxonMobil, which led to a #DropExxon protest campaign in early 2020 from students at the elite law schools where Paul, Weiss typically recruits.
The firm is also notable for the volume of money it has given to Democrats in recent years. In 2018, employees gave about $2 million to campaigns, over 96 percent of which went to Democrats, especially Senators Chris Murphy (CT) and Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY-8), which makes sense, given the firm’s New York City location. In 2020, Paul, Weiss employees gave over $575,000 to the Biden campaign, making the firm one of his top sources of funding. The firm was also a major donor to Bill de Blasio’s failed presidential run, and firm Chairman Brad Karp was a bundler for both Biden and Amy Klobuchar.
Kirkland & Ellis
The Chicago-based firm is even larger than Paul, Weiss and brought in more than $4 billion in revenue in 2019, making it the top-grossing law firm in the country. As that footprint suggests, it does pretty much everything, and over the years, has represented a number of notorious clients, including Jeffrey Epstein and BP during litigation over the Deepwater Horizon spill. Kirkland & Ellis’ thriving Supreme Court practice scored an incredible four wins at the high court in 2019, including a 7-2 decision that allowed religious employers to opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that they provide contraception to workers.
As that track record suggests, the firm’s work isn’t always celebrated by liberals, to put it mildly (though it did win an award for its pro bono representation of migrants at the U.S. border). And though political donations by its employees mostly go toward Democrats, between 20% and 40% typically winds up in Republican coffers. In 2020, Kirkland employees donated more than $200,000 to the Republican National Committee.
Still, the firm’s size and the largesse of its employees makes it a major contributor to Democratic candidates. In 2018, it donated over $1 million to Democrats, and eclipsed that amount in 2020 with $1.6 million in gifts to Democrats. Jon Henes, a partner at the firm, was also Kamala Harris’s national finance chair during her presidential run and organized a fundraising committee for Biden. Beyond national figures, the firm’s employees substantially each cycle—including $180,000 in 2020—to Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-8), who was once a partner at the firm.
Akin, Gump, et al.
Akin, Gump is one of D.C.’s most prominent lobbying firms with a 2019 client list that included the Gila River Indian Community (which owns multiple casinos and spends millions on lobbying), InBev and Philip Morris. The firm has over 1,000 employees in locations all over the world and too many practice areas to list, though its website highlights mainly its pro bono work on behalf of asylum applicants and indigent clients. The firm has represented some famous D.C. names, including Paul Manafort (a partner was forced to testify during the former Trump campaign head’s prosecution) and Catherine Croft, a State Department official who testified during impeachment proceedings.
During the 2018 midterms, Akin employees gave over $1.1 million to Democrats (and $420,000 to Republicans), most notably Rep. Antonio Delgado (NY-19), who received over $240,000 in Akin cash. Delgado, who formerly worked for the firm in New York, used that money to eke out close primary and general election wins in his upstate district, surviving a notably racist GOP attack ad.
In 2020, Akin employees donated over $100,000 to Delgado and over $300,000 to Biden, making them the two individual candidates who received the most Akin cash. The firm's employees spread an additional $1.4 million around to PACs and other candidates, including over $500,000 to Republicans.
Latham & Watkins
This international firm (which touts its lack of a single headquarters) has 2,700 lawyers across 14 countries and was the world’s top-grossing firm until Kirkland & Ellis took that title from it in 2018. Like the other firms on this list, Latham & Watkins has a major appellate and Supreme Court practice, a host of legal awards, and clients including fossil fuel companies, major banks, and so on.
Donations from employees to Democrats totaled a little less than $750,000 in 2018 and were spread around to a number of Senate and House candidates including Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Claire McCaskill. In 2020, the firm stepped up its giving in a major way, contributing over $2.4 million to elections, including $2.1 million to Democrats and nearly $600,000 to Biden alone. Notably, members of the firm gave over $100,000 to finance the congressional run of Latham partner Ellen Marks in Indiana’s Second District, but she lost handily to Pat Hackett in the Democratic primary.
WilmerHale LLP
This firm was created when two law firms (one in Boston, the other in D.C.) merged in 2004. It’s notable for defending clients accused of white-collar crimes: WilmerHale won an acquittal for the chief strategy officer of a company known as the “Kansas Enron,” successfully defended Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn) from insider trading accusations, and was retained by PepsiCo when the company faced an SEC probe over allegations it had fired a whistleblower—a case a WilmerHale attorney revealed when they accidentally emailed a memo to the Wall Street Journal (whoops). The firm has also represented Guantanamo Bay inmates as part of its pro bono practice.
WilmerHale employees gave over $716,000 to Democrats in 2018; the top recipient of the firm’s money was Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, who wasn’t even running that year, which reflects WilmerHale’s Boston roots. In 2020, the firm raised nearly $70,000 for the Colorado Senate campaign of John Walsh, a former employee—Walsh subsequently dropped out of the primary and rejoined the firm. The rest of the firm's $1.8 million political donations this cycle went along predictable lines, with over $700,000 combined going to Biden and the DNC and other donations spread out among Democratic Senate candidates.
Biglaw money isn't substantially different than other money that goes to Democrats. The legal profession may have a transactional reason for supporting Democrats and opposing tort reform, but individual lawyers who live in big cities are also obviously motivated by personal ideology, which is reflected in the large chunks that moderate Democrats can raise from these sources. Still, there remains only one surefire way to raise money from a Biglaw firm: go work for one.
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