Journalist Felled by #MeToo Joins Clare Locke Defamation Team

A former journalist whose promising career imploded from accusations of sexual impropriety at the height of the #MeToo movement now plans to use his experience at a leading defamation law firm.

Jonathan Kaiman, a former Fulbright scholar, is less known for his seven years of work in Asia than for how that endeavor ended. His online biography for the Pulitzer Center, where Kaiman was once a grantee, states that the former Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times resigned “after an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct.”

What happened during Kaiman’s time in China remains a subject of vigorous dispute. One of the few undisputed assertions is that the allegations against him set in motion a total collapse of his professional reputation, which resulted in his decision to embark on his new career.

“It’s like how some justice-impacted people go on to become extraordinary criminal defense attorneys,” Kaiman, 37, said by email. “They understand their clients better than most attorneys ever could. There’s a nice symmetry to it. That’s what I’m doing here.”

Kaiman’s October admission to the Virginia bar raises questions about how much weight should be given to allegations of sexual misconduct against bar candidates in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, which drew attention to the legal profession’s treatment of women in its ranks and to accusations that some lawyers used hardball tactics, including restrictive nondisclosure agreements, to protect serial predators such as former film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Kaiman plans to use his experience to inform his work at Alexandria, Va.-based Clare Locke, which has been restocking its attorney roster after a group of nonequity partners and associates left the firm.

He declined to discuss his accusers or the specific allegations made against him but provided brief answers to some questions about his new career as a first-year associate at Clare Locke, where he was also a summer associate in 2021 and 2022 while attending law school at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Kaiman said he now has the “privilege of confronting” many problems in the media industry, citing bias, carelessness, and echo chambers as among the wrongs he wants to correct.

“I couldn’t have been luckier,” he said. “Clare Locke is second-to-none in this space. Their work product, in terms of depth, accuracy, and narrative craft, leaves most high-end journalism in the dust.”

‘Human Toll’

Clare Locke, founded in 2014 by the husband-and-wife team of Thomas Clare and Elizabeth “Libby” Locke, both former Kirkland & Ellis partners, is known for helping secure a $787.5 million defamation settlement last year from Fox Corp. The litigation boutique also secured a settlement from Rolling Stone magazine over a campus rape story involving the University of Virginia that was later retracted over numerous discrepancies.

Libby Locke said Kaiman’s experiences make him an ideal addition to the firm. “That he suffered the same human toll as so many of our clients makes him extraordinarily well-situated to advise those clients in their moment of crisis,” Locke said in a statement.

Libby Locke of Clare Locke LLP.

Photo by Abby Drey/Centre Daily Times/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

She also said Kaiman “will bring to his practice a level of empathy that few can” and that Clare Locke was “gratified that we can help him rebuild what was taken” by forging a new career path in private practice.

Anita Bernstein, an expert on feminist jurisprudence and tort law at Brooklyn Law School, said the legal field has long struggled with how to address sex-related issues in determining bar admission.

“Back when several states criminalized sodomy and fornication, authorities would sometimes deny admission to lawyers they said were breaking these laws,” she said. “Memories of this harmful past linger. The bar respects the difference between prejudices about sex and threats to the public but isn’t always sure where to draw the line.”

Renee Knake Jefferson, a professor of legal ethics at the University of Houston Law Center, said in an email that #MeToo-related claims without formal charges can be difficult for bar authorities to measure. She cited the series of sexual misconduct accusations by former law clerks against former federal appellate judge Alex Kozinski, who retired from the judiciary but continued to practice law.

Bar examiners are tasked with evaluating the character and fitness of would-be lawyers, a process requiring applicants to disclose any past indiscretions. When a bar candidate is not officially charged with a crime or convicted of one, as was the case for Kaiman, examiners generally tend to err on the side of admission.

Tracy Tamborra, a professor at the University of New Haven and expert on the impact of sexual assault and abuse, said while the legal profession has changed for the better with more women entering its workforce, challenges remain.

“I question the model rules of professional conduct if their preeminent metric for determining whether someone has violated those rules is through a criminal conviction or civil case that held them responsible for some negative outcome,” she said. “We don’t have a way of measuring and assessing morality and ethics.”

The Undoing

After several years working and reporting in China, Kaiman resigned from his role as president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China in January 2018 and was later suspended by the Times after at least two women, both former acquaintances, came forward with sexual misconduct complaints. His resignation from the Times in the latter half of 2018 following two inquiries by the newspaper into his alleged actions was covered at the time by the Associated Press, The New York Times, and other outlets.

After billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the L.A. Times that year, the new ownership group hired an outside law firm to review the claims against Kaiman that had been probed by an in-house team. A spokeswoman for the Times and its general counsel, Jeffrey Glasser, declined to comment or provide documentation related to its investigation. Julie Xanders, who was a top lawyer for the Times’ former parent company, didn’t respond to a comment request.

Kaiman’s two named accusers are journalist Felicia Sonmez and Laura Tucker, now an attorney in Texas. Tucker detailed in an online post in 2018 her experience of being pressured into sex with Kaiman. Sonmez later said she had been sexually assaulted by Kaiman, an accusation she repeated in a 2021 lawsuit filed against The Washington Post almost a year before the newspaper terminated her employment. (That case was dismissed in 2022 but is on appeal.)

Sonmez and Tucker declined to discuss Kaiman or his new career as a defamation lawyer at Clare Locke.

Kaiman declined to revisit his interactions with both women. In a 2018 podcast interview, Kaiman talked about the circumstances surrounding his Times resignation and expressed regret for any harm he caused, but he also alleged no wrongdoing and maintained that from his perspective, sex with both women was consensual.

In a 2019 story published by libertarian magazine Reason, Kaiman spoke of contemplating suicide after realizing the allegations against him had effectively ended his journalism career. The piece, for which Sonmez sought corrections in a letter to the publication and a response she posted to social media, saw Kaiman describe the fallout from his professional purge.

The Reason story described Kaiman’s decision to go to law school as a pathway to a second career.

Professional Standards

Wendy Muchman, a professor specializing in legal ethics and professional responsibility at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, said she’s never come across a situation exactly like Kaiman’s.

Current and former judges, ex-law school deans, and those in private practice have faced disciplinary proceedings for sex-related claims all after they were admitted to state bars.

Kaiman’s bid for admission to the Virginia State Bar involved passing a character and fitness requirement that’s entirely separate from disciplinary proceedings, Muchman said. The process for would-be lawyers is also “not particularly transparent” in that applications and other materials submitted to boards of bar examiners are usually not public, she said.

Stephen Gillers, an ethics professor at New York University School of Law, said via email that Kaiman would’ve had to disclose details about his prior work history in his law school applications and applying to the bar.

Kaiman’s case brings to mind Stephen Glass, an ex-journalist whose fabricated stories drove him out of the profession and who sought a new career in the law. Unlike Kaiman, Glass was unsuccessful in becoming a lawyer. Gillers said the key difference between Kaiman and Glass is the “essential facts” that ended Glass’ journalism career were never in dispute. Glass declined to comment.

Kaiman and Locke declined to discuss the information that was provided to bar examiners.

The Virginia Board of Bar Examiners’ character and fitness requirements, which are posted online, necessitate that “misconduct in employment and/or termination for cause, including a request for your resignation,” must be disclosed by bar applicants. The VBBE is separate from the Virginia State Bar, whose executive director, Cameron Rountree, said the organization only deals with matters involving lawyers who are already bar members.

Catherine Crooks Hill, secretary-treasurer for the VBBE, said it does background checks on every applicant and verifies employment and education histories. “In that respect, we solicit feedback from others,” Crooks Hill said. “But there is no specific process for outside individuals to file objections about a particular applicant. The board conducts its own character and fitness investigations.”

A Higher Bar

One of the many difficulties in addressing Kaiman’s quest for a new career is evaluating how the alleged sins—and even acknowledged mistakes—from someone’s past determine their future as a lawyer.

Tamborra, who is not a lawyer, said that the current standards for bar admission are too lax when it comes to those facing accusations of sexual misconduct, particularly given that more than 90% of sexual assault and harassment cases never come before a legal body for determination. While not attesting to the accuracy of any claims against Kaiman, Tamborra said people can only change if they are held accountable and are remorseful.

However, making it more difficult for individuals accused of sexual misconduct to become lawyers would clash with the criminal justice reform movement’s efforts to broaden the parameters for entry into the profession.

One reform advocate is Tarra Simmons, a former nurse who once spent 20 months in prison for drug offenses. Simmons graduated law school, secured a prestigious fellowship sponsored by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and battled all the way to Washington state’s top court for the right to sit for the bar exam. She won that fight, passed the bar, and in 2020 was elected to Washington’s Legislature.

Simmons said in terms of fairness and fiscal responsibility it makes more sense to allow those who secure a J.D. and pass the bar to get licensed and then empower state bars to provide better enforcement on actual lawyers.

“People who go through hardship in life and overcome it are less prone to future misconduct because they know how hard it was to find a second chance,” Simmons said. “People who have been protected with privilege their whole lives continue to repeat misconduct because they find ways to escape accountability.”

Harder barriers of bar admission for those that made missteps early in their lives will continue to create systemic inequities, she said.

“People are capable of profound change regardless of their past,” said Simmons, who has been a victim of sexual violence. “The legal profession would do better as a whole to allow everyone a first chance at the job.”