Clare Locke Sees Partner Exodus After Fox Defamation Case Win

Four non-equity partners gave their notice Thursday at Clare Locke, a boutique firm of 17 lawyers that was co-counsel to Dominion Voting Systems Inc. in a landmark $787.5 million defamation settlement this year.

Megan Meier and Daniel Watkins confirmed they are leaving the Alexandria, Va.-based firm, along with partners Andrew Phillips and Dustin Pusch, to form Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch. Watkins said they were inspired to launch their own firm by the “entrepreneurial spirit” of Clare Locke’s founders.

Clare Locke was founded in 2014 by former Kirkland & Ellis partners Thomas Clare and Elizabeth “Libby” Locke, currently the firm’s only equity partners. The pair said in an internal communication to Clare Locke’s staffers that the firm “is well positioned for an orderly transition, and our ongoing plans to continue adding attorneys to serve our rapidly growing client base remains unchanged.”

Clare Locke is losing more than half of its partnership.

“We wish our colleagues much continued success in the defamation bar, where smaller firms are needed to take on matters of significant importance for clients of all resources,” Clare and Locke said.

Clare and Locke, who are married, are among the most high-profile lawyers in the defamation and media law space, known for their work on behalf of notable—and controversial—clients such as WeWork Inc. boss Adam Neumann and former NBC News personality Matt Lauer.

The duo also scored a $3 million jury verdict against Rolling Stone over false claims made in a 2014 story by the magazine about campus culture at the University of Virginia.

New Firm

Public records show that Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch was registered as a limited liability partnership in early June. The new firm also has a website.

The new Washington-based shop is keen on establishing itself as a defamation law powerhouse representing clients on both sides of the US political aisle, although not necessarily across the entire political spectrum, Meier said.

Meier and Phillips are former Kirkland associates who helped start Clare Locke nearly a decade ago. Watkins, who made partner in 2021, joined the firm five years prior after working as an associate at Williams Mullen and Norton Rose Fulbright. Pusch was hired by Clare Locke in 2015 and made partner last year.

Three of the exiting Clare Locke partners were involved in representing Dominion in its historic settlement with Fox Corp.’s Fox News just before trial. Dominion’s legal team in that dispute included litigators from Clare Locke, Susman Godfrey, and Delaware’s Farnan.

The legal fees from that deal haven’t been disclosed, but any awards to plaintiffs’ firms in the litigation would’ve likely been substantial, particularly for Clare and Locke. The only non-equity partner not leaving the firm is Joseph Oliveri, a former associate and partner at Kirkland who has been with Clare Locke since its creation and is now based in Knoxville, Tenn.

Meier and Watkins also worked with Clare Locke’s name partners in securing a $26 million defamation verdict in 2019 against Puma Biotechnology Inc. on behalf of Republican donor Fredric Eshelman, who alleged he was maligned in a proxy fight. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ultimately unwound that judgment, which settled this year for $16 million.

Meier secured a nearly $3.4 million settlement from the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2018 on behalf of Islamic activist and reformer Maajid Nawaz.

Phillips is representing Chinese American scientist Yanping Chen in a case that could have ramifications for how journalists protect the identity of anonymous sources. Marvel star Jonathan Majors has turned to Pusch to fight allegations of abusive behavior by the actor.

Watkins has within the past year been representing a company called Kytch Inc. in a $900 million lawsuit against McDonald’s Corp. Kytch, which made a device that fixed the fast-food giant’s ice cream machines, claims McDonald’s crushed its business by reverse engineering its own competing product.

Clare Locke has previously recruited new legal talent to offset departures. The firm earlier this year hired counsel Jered Ede from Project Veritas, where he spent more than two years as chief legal officer for the conservative activist group. Ede came aboard less than a year after former Clare Locke counsel Daniel Mauler left the firm to become general counsel for Heritage Action for America, a political advocacy group affiliated with The Heritage Foundation.

Mauler, who this month took over as the top lawyer for the conservative think tank, in a statement posted to LinkedIn last year called his former Clare Locke colleagues the “best and most fearsome defamation attorneys in the nation.”

Mauler didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the departure of his former colleagues at Clare Locke.