Jack Smith’s New Venture Shuns Label as Anti-Trump Attack Dog

The law firm that opens in Washington Monday is best known for a co-founder who twice prosecuted Donald Trump and was insulted by the president as “deranged Jack Smith.”

All four founders, in fact, have been in Trump’s crosshairs for their work on investigations into his actions. But Heaphy Smith Harbach & Windom aims to transcend its reputation and take on white collar litigation and investigations of any kind.

“This will be potentially perceived in the market as an anti-Trump effort, given that all of us have worked on investigations of the current president,” Tim Heaphy, a former Willkie Farr & Gallagher partner, said in an interview. “But that isn’t the animating principle of the firm.”

Tim Heaphy

While those who crossed the president have formed law firms dedicated to waging more of those fights—Abbe Lowell and Marc Elias come to mind—this new venture tests whether lawyers with anti-Trump reputations can lure clients who are agnostic or even supportive of the president.

So far, the jury is out. As the firm begins operations, all its clients originated with Heaphy when he was at Willkie and followed him to the new operation. Those include two northern Virginia school districts denied federal funding because of their bathroom policy for transgender students. Heaphy is also representing the Univeristy of Washington, along with other clients he declined to name.

But Thomas Windom, who was part of Smith’s team investigating Trump for alleged interference in the 2020 election, said the partners are seeking cases that aren’t just political or anti-Trump in nature. The founders are encouraged to start after losses Trump took in court over executive orders he issued against law firms.

“Our goal is to have a full-service law firm, one that extends beyond the current moment and stands the test of time,” Windom said.

Trump Cases

If clients want lawyers with bona fides for going after Trump, it will be tough to top Heaphy Smith Harbach & Windom.

Then Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith, who declined to comment for this article, in 2022 to investigate the president. That investigation led to two indictments against Trump—one alleging conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and one claiming the president mishandled classified documents. Both cases were dropped following Trump’s re-election.

Thomas Windom

Trump showed his antipathy for Smith in his first action against Big Law last year. He issued a memo to cancel security clearances and government work for Covington & Burling because the law firm agreed to represent Smith in government investigations into his work. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Windom co-led the Trump election interference investigation as part of Smith’s special counsel team. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) last year referred Windom to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution after he refused to answer questions during a deposition.

David Harbach prosecuted the special counsel’s case against Trump for alleged mishandling of classified documents. Sparks flew between him and the Florida federal judge overseeing the case, Trump-appointed Aileen Cannon, who ruled that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.

Heaphy, before joining Willkie in 2023, was chief investigative counsel to the US House Jan. 6 panel, which Trump has derisively called “the unselect committee.” Willkie, which Heaphy officially left on Sunday, is one of nine firms that last year collectively promised $940 million in free legal services for causes they and Trump support in order to avoid punitive executive orders.

Firm Connections

Though Heaphy and Smith both investigated Jan. 6, they never knowingly crossed paths until a mutual friend introduced them last year, Heaphy said. The two began talking about opening their own law firm, and Heaphy said he was eager to branch off and form his own practice to harness the flexibility and independence of a small trial firm.

Harbach worked with Smith in DOJ’s public integrity section, and Smith recruited him at the Hague to investigate crimes committed during the Kosovo War. Harbach and Windom have been out of jobs since leaving the Justice Department: Harbach left the special counsel’s office when it was dissolved following Trump’s election and Windom was fired in a mass purge of DOJ lawyers who had investigated the president.

David Harbach

Harbach said he found the legal hiring market challenging because of the flood of Justice Department exits and, potentially, because of his work in the Special Counsel’s office at a time when law firms were being punished for their ties to Trump’s political enemies.

“I never got the cold shoulder from any firm because of my work” at the special counsel’s office, he said. “However, it may have been a factor in the relative difficulty of getting on at a law firm compared to when I got back from the Hague” and joined O’Melveny & Myers.

Besides the four name partners, the new firm will be staffed by two Willkie associates who Heaphy declined to name because they haven’t yet left the bigger firm. Willkie wishes Heaphy well, the firm said in a statement.

‘Defend Ourselves’

The formation of Smith’s firm with former colleagues who investigated and prosecuted Trump manifests a renewed boldness after Trump’s attacks against lawyers have been overturned by federal judges.

That four Big Law firms were vindicated in court last year when they sued to reverse Trump’s executive orders “encouraged” the founders of the new operation, Harbach said.

“All four of us have spent our careers laboring in public service on the foundation bedrock principle of the rule of law and that when courts issue orders and decisions, you follow them or you appeal them,” Harbach said.

Even firms that pledged to support Trump-aligned causes have acted against the administration, with Milbank’s Neal Katyal, an Obama-era acting US Solicitor General, leading a Supreme Court case against Trump’s tariff regime.

“The law firms that have resisted efforts to take security clearances or take other actions have largely been successful,” Heaphy said. “If that happens to us, we’ll be prepared to defend ourselves just as we vigorously defend our clients, and I think we’d have a lot of allies in that.”

The four also bonded over their experience of facing pressure of political turmoil, Windom said.

“We have all been through very difficult circumstances as part of our investigations,” he said. “We look forward to applying experience and the principles that we’ve developed over the course of our careers, not just in government, but at private law firms.”