Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice
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Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice
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Unfortunately for Pendragon, participating in this desperate scheme has placed his own soul in jeopardy. If the Reapers succeed and Flameheart is reborn, it will be Sir Arthur who finds himself marooned in the furthest reaches of the Sea of the Damned, beyond even Belle’s ability to aid him. A powerful and important picture of how mega law firms distort justice." — David Cay Johnston, Washington Post
Despite its extended title, the book is less about Donald Trump and more about one law firm’s journey from origins of legal and social conscience to self-serving justifications to take on any challenge, however shady the client motivations. And even in-house conflict-of-interest cases. David Enrich, born in 1979, is book author and journalist for The New York Times. The latter put him on Deutsche Bank to find out how it handled "suspicious activity" in Donald Trump's accounts. In 2020, his book on this topic was published: Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction.The NYT's Business Investigations Editor reveals the dark side of American law: Delivering a "devastating" (Carol Leonnig) exposé of the astonishing yet shadowy power wielded by the world’s largest law firms, David Enrich traces how one firm shielded opioid makers, gun companies, big tobacco, Russian oligarchs, Fox News, the Catholic Church, and much of the Fortune 500; helped Donald Trump get elected, govern, and evade investigation; masterminded the conservative remaking of the courts . . . and make a killing along the way. There was a lot of things in the book I didn’t know before. The lawyers and their firms who advise and support clients who have hired them are not often much focused on in news stories. The role of legal firms in enabling politicians, and others, to push out into the various news media their edited spin on unsavory activities, or the advice and financial support lawyers give on how to tell and conceal lies and hide financial wrongdoing is eye-opening. Even worse, is how legal firms are orchestrating the funneling of money to politicians, including coercing their own, normally impartial, employees to give money to people the controlling partners of a law firm openly and proudly support. The days of corporate law firms, at least some of the larger ones, being impartial stewards of the law is gone. Some corporate law firms proudly align themselves only with clients who are members of only one political party. If you have a strong stomach, this is a very revealing book about the intertwining corruptions in the connections between politicians, businesses and corporate lawyers. Through describing the history of one corporate legal firm, a lot of how business and politicians conspire to screw American citizens over, and out of hard-earned financial and physical well-being, and shoveling taxpayer and client money into their own personal bank accounts without most of us being aware of how we are being harmed, is demonstrated. But when McGahn refused to cross the proverbial line during the Russia investigation, Trump soured on him. McGahn made and kept notes – to Trump’s consternation. McGahn quit in fall 2018. The following spring, Trump tweeted: “McGahn had a much better chance of being fired than [Robert] Mueller. Never a big fan!” I’ve been pretty put off by big name lawyers in America in the first time I read She Said and Catch and Kill and saw how Harvey Weinstein was able to intimidate and threaten his victims, any witnesses and the journalists wanting to uncover his crimes - by employing high powered lawyers and using their full legal apparatus against those who possibly couldn’t afford costly legal challenges.
I think aspirationally, this is a very interesting portrait of how the larger, multinational law firms have lost their way. It did not have to be primarily focused on Jones Day and the intro sets it up where it could be about Skadden or any one of the top BigLaw firms. And the author alludes to that. However, he makes the choice to focuses on Jones Day itself instead of the other big law firms that snort up top law school graduates like a frat boy consuming nose nachos on spring break. And I think the book is persuasively worse for it, if slightly more entertaining as a result.In conversations with other partners, Ginsberg argued that Jones Day should pre-emptively draw a series of bright lines: It would not take cases that called into question the fairness of the election. It would not take cases in which it argued for voting restrictions, such as by banning ballot drop-boxes or discouraging the use of absentee voting. It would not participate in the further erosion of democratic norms.
Jones Day has emerged as a “go-to firm for Republicans, mainstream and fringe alike”, as Enrich puts it. With sneakers, vodka and computers, branding matters. Law firms are a little different. Through that lens, Servants of the Damned is as much a rebuke of one large firm as it is an indictment of Trump’s Republican party.LEGUM: You describe regulatory changes around advertising that facilitated the growth of Jones Day and other law firms into much larger, much more powerful forces. It switched the focus of the firm from being officers of the court to doing whatever it takes to advance corporate interests and maximize firm profits. How much of this do you think is a reflection of Jones Day's evolution versus Jones Day responding to the demands of the modern corporation? A deep dive into the law firm that became one of the key institutions in the president’s orbit. … Jones Day lawyers figured prominently in Trump’s rise to power and his exercise of it. Enrich treats the relationship as a sign of a broader decline in ethical standards at big American law firms.”— Financial Times As a lawyer from the Cleveland area, I was familiar with Jones Day, the subject of David Enrich's latest book. Enrich traces the history of the firm from its roots to the present. The author's premise is that Jones Day and other mega law firms have lost their moral compass in the pursuit of growth, more clients, more lawyers, larger salaries, and winning at all costs. Enrich posits that Jones Day's pursuit of RJ Reynolds and the defense of the tobacco industry was the pivotal event that changed the firm's focus. From there, it was a short jump to representing Donald Trump in both campaigns and doing his bidding to attempt to invalidate the 2020 election and upend the rule of law. Whether the intensity of Enrich’s disdain is deserved is debatable. The public holds lawyers in lower esteem than auto mechanics, nursing home operators, bankers and local politicians. On the other hand, lawyers fare better than reporters. Beyond that, the bar’s canons demand that lawyers zealously represent their clients. Reputational concern and the ease or difficulty of recruiting fresh talent and clients are often more potent restraints than finger-wagging. This would be a good book on its' own! But it feels kind of vindictive or editorialized in a way the first two sections don't. There's a lot of allusions to corruption that aren't nearly as concrete as the preceding stuff. This section is the weakest by a mile. It felt a bit contrived, especially the long Wal-Mart pharmacy story that involves people that weren't employees of the firm at the time. And while I know having the words "Trump" and "corruption" on the cover is going to move some units (and the Kirkus review puts an exclamation mark on that point), it invites the kind of (dishonest) blanket dismissal that was published in WSJ by Kevyn Orr (who figures prominently in the third section of the book).
In this gripping and revealing new work of narrative nonfiction, Enrich makes the compelling central argument that law firms like Jones Day play a crucial yet largely hidden role in enabling and protecting powerful bad actors in our society, housing their darkest secrets, and earning billions in revenue for themselves. This is not a book describing how corporate law is upholding or defending democracy. This is a book describing an intentional destruction of constitutional democracy crafted by some of the smartest, most educated men (they are mostly men). These are lawyers dedicated to obscuring and hiding legal immorality and in breaking, not just bending, the law. You also can look at a lot of other corporate law firms that have just simply refused to work with big tobacco companies, some have refused to work with gun companies, things like that. I think clearly within the legal profession there are a lot of people who think there is, on its face, an ethical problem, or they would have an ethical problem, at least representing these companies. A deep dive into the law firm that became one of the key institutions in the president’s orbit. … Jones Day lawyers figured prominently in Trump’s rise to power and his exercise of it. Enrich treats the relationship as a sign of a broader decline in ethical standards at big American law firms.” — Financial Times Monday’s newsletter is an exclusive adapted excerpt from “ Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice ,” a new book by David Enrich, the business investigations editor at The New York Times.A withering study of how big law got into bed with the 45th president. ... Informative and disturbing." — The Guardian The president’s rhetoric,” he said, “has put my party in the position of a firefighter who deliberately sets fires to look like a hero putting them out.” Republicans “risk harming the fundamental principle of our democracy: that all eligible voters must be allowed to cast their ballots. If that happens, Americans will deservedly render the GOP a minority party for a long, long time.”
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