By the Numbers: 9 Firms, Lawyers Were Legal Targets in 2023

Attorneys are no stranger to legal trouble—even when they are their own.

The collapse of crypto exchange FTX shows how lawyers and law firms became entangled in controversy. Other firms got swept into legal fights stemming from cyberattacks. A showdown in Washington also featured Covington & Burling squaring off against the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

These are the law firms and lawyers that faced some of the year’s most notable cases.

1. Fenwick & West

Silicon Valley-based Fenwick & West came under scrutiny this year over its ties to FTX and its leader, Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted of fraud in November.

Fenwick, once the main corporate law firm for FTX, is among several third-party advisers facing a class action alleging they enabled a fraud at the crypto exchange.

The firm has also faced subpoenas from federal prosecutors, though it is unclear why it became a target of law enforcement. Fenwick has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming it performed “routine” legal services and wasn’t aware of its client’s inner workings.

2. Daniel Friedberg

FTX’s new management in June filed a lawsuit in Delaware bankruptcy court alleging Daniel Friedberg, the former chief compliance officer of FTX, enabled a wide-ranging fraud at the crypto exchange. He’s also accused of setting up a shell company to circumvent banks’ reluctance to do work with crypto companies.

FTX funneled customer money into the account, which was then used for high-risk trades, political donations, and loans to executives, according to the suit.

Friedberg, once the chair of Fenwick’s payments practice before joining FTX, hasn’t commented on the lawsuit

3. Dechert

Dechert in 2023 continued to face the fallout from a slew of accusations against a former London-based partner, including that he aided a hacking scheme against a “perceived enemy” of a foreign state.

The firm has faced at least six legal proceedings tied to the alleged actions of Neil Gerrard, a white-collar attorney who retired in 2020. Dechert has denied allegations of impropriety and is aggressively defending itself in the UK trials and against the US lawsuits.

Farhad Azima, a US aviation executive, has alleged that Dechert and Gerrard assisted Ras Al Khaimah, a tiny state in the United Arab Emirates, in a hacking scheme that came as a response to his efforts to publicize the emirate’s human rights abuses. His cases against Dechert and Gerrard remain pending.

Dechert in August settled a separate lawsuit from Jay Solomon, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who claimed that the hacking operation led to the illegal retrieval and dissemination of his communications with Azima.

4. Covington & Burling

Covington & Burling got in the crosshairs of federal securities regulators following a cyberattack on the firm that potentially exposed some of its clients’ information.

The SEC sued the firm in a DC federal court after the firm refused to give up the names of potentially affected clients. The agency said the names of the nearly 300 clients would assist an investigation into whether securities laws were broken.

Covington, with support from dozens of Big Law firms, argued the request violated bedrock principles of confidentiality.

A DC federal judge tried to strike a middle ground, finding that the SEC didn’t exceed its statutory authority but that its request for 300 client names was too broad. He ordered the firm to share seven client names.

Covington agreed to release six names to the SEC. One firm client has indicated it will appeal the ruling, according to a September court filing.

5. Wigdor

Billionaire Leon Black in August filed his latest lawsuit against Wigdor LLP, the law firm that has represented three women who accused Black of sexual assault.

Black, a founder of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, accused Wigdor of malicious prosecution, charging that the firm filed three “life-ruining” lawsuits without a shred of evidence. He targeted the firm’s tactics and ethics, claiming its playbook is to trade “scandalous allegations” for money.

Douglas Wigdor, a firm founder who has targeted Fox News and Harvey Weinstein over sexual misconduct, has stood by the women’s claims amid the legal counterattack. “Eventually it’s all going to come out,” Wigdor said in September.

6. Paul Hastings

The Coca-Cola Co. targeted Paul Hastings in a case that tested the boundaries of “advance conflict-of-interest waivers,” an agreement increasingly used by Big Law firms when taking on client work.

Coke sought to disqualify Paul Hastings from representing a beverage cooling company that sued the soda giant. Coke claimed the firm’s past representation of the company should have prevented it from ever accepting the assignment.

A federal judge, however, ruled in Paul Hastings’ favor, finding that Coke’s 2021 retainer agreement generally allowed the firm to take cases in the future that might otherwise present a conflict. “Coca-Cola knows what Paul Hastings is, what Paul Hastings does, and the types of clients Paul Hastings represents,” said Florida Magistrate Judge Robert Norway.

Proskauer Rose

Proskauer Rose reached a settlement ahead of trial with a former client to resolve a $636 million lawsuit that alleged the New York-based law firm drafted shoddy legal documents that cost the client his ownership interest in a hedge fund spin-off.

According to a complaint from Robert Adelman, a Proskauer attorney mistakenly copied and pasted a strategic transactions section from a prior contract during negotiations for the hedge fund.

The Proskauer partner who drafted the spinoff agreements produced a copy during discovery indicating she understood she made a mistake when crafting the “strategic transaction” provision, Adelman noted.

7. Boies Schiller Flexner

Boies Schiller got swept into a fight between food distributor Sysco Corp. and the litigation finance firm Burford Capital Ltd. Sysco in March sued affiliates of Burford, alleging it meddled to thwart the company’s efforts to settle several major antitrust cases.

The company claimed that Boies Schiller, once its counsel, succumbed to pressure from Burford after one of its lawyers met with the funder, which had invested $140 million in the price-fixing cases. Boies Schiller denied any impropriety. The fight offered a peek inside the world of litigation finance, a $13.5 billion industry in which investors make bets on lawsuits in exchange for a portion of any winnings.

Burford had said the Sysco case was unique because Sysco gave it veto authority on settlement talks after the food distributor violated the terms of the funding agreement. The two sides later resolved the fight, with Sysco agreeing to assign Burford its legal claims against the food suppliers. Burford had originally claimed the settlement amounts Sysco was considering were too low.

8. and 9. Covington, ArentFox Schiff

Elliott Broidy, a past top fundraiser for former President Donald Trump, targeted law firms including Covington and ArentFox Schiff for allegedly helping hide evidence in a lawsuit alleging a Qatari-backed plot to hack and smear him.

The claims were leveled after Joseph Allaham, a former lobbyist for Qatar, handed over a tranche of records as part of a settlement he reached with Broidy to end litigation against him. The documents included communications between Allaham and his lawyers at ArentFox Schiff, as well as other records showing Covington, Qatar’s counsel, suggested Allaham deny admission of the hack.

Covington has called Broidy’s allegations “baseless and inflammatory.” ArentFox Schiff has also argued that Covington’s edits were suggestions to make sure Allaham’s responses didn’t contradict his prior sworn statements.

Broidy’s case remains ongoing. In October, he scored a victory after a district judge ordered the defendants to share more documents as part of the suit. The judge, however, denied Broidy’s motion for a forensic review of counsel for Qatar and the defendants.