Clare Locke Spinoff Meier Watkins Enlists Dominion Win Lawyer

First Amendment lawyer Rodney Smolla is joining Clare Locke spinoff Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch as senior counsel, according to the firm.

“We have been overwhelmed with support and demand from the market for defamation services and we reached a point where we had to expand our roster to meet that demand,” firm co-founder Daniel Watkins said in an interview.

The DC-founded boutique was launched in 2023 by former Clare Locke attorneys Watkins, Megan Meier, Andy Phillips and Dustin Pusch.

Smolla, along with the boutique’s founders, was part of the litigation team that secured the $787.5 million defamation settlement for Dominion Voting Systems Inc. from Fox News in 2023. He was most recently the president of Vermont Law and Graduate School. Outside of his solo litigation practice, Smolla also led Widener Delaware Law School, Washington and Lee University Law School and University of Richmond Law Schools.

Smolla expects to be deployed to court often and help refine the firm’s litigation strategy, he said.

“Rod is the godfather of defamation law, and we’re excited to add him to our team,” Meier said.

Smolla represented female chess champion Nona Gaprindashvili who alleged Netflix knowingly made false statements about her in its miniseries “The Queen’s Gambit.” He also defended Lev Parnas, who was part of a group being sued for $30 million for allegedly making defamatory statements about a US veteran.

In addition to litigating defamation suits the firm’s lawyers also work to proactively squash defamatory accusations pre-publication, Watkins said. The firm’s client roster has included influencer Logan Paul, film producer Ryan Kavanaugh, and Kytch, which serviced McFlurry ice cream machines at McDonald’s restaurants.

Clare Locke’s leaders accused their former colleagues of spinning off the new firm to pocket millions of dollars in potential fees over work done for Kytch.

The firm employs 11 attorneys, including four partners. Archith Ramkumar, a former SEC appellate lawyer, is also joining the firm. He’s one of many ex-government lawyers who moved to the private sector.

“We saw an opportunity to snag some top talent and we acted on it,” Watkins said.

The firm offers flexible fee arrangements but refrains from solely contingency-fee pricing. The firm is also open to litigation financing opportunities for the right cases, Watkins said.