The conservative lawyer fired by the Trump Organization last year for representing Harvard University is back helping the family, this time defending a crypto venture.
William Burck is representing World Liberty Financial, according to a filing April 29 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The project founded by the Trump family that has been hit with conflicts of interest allegations and investor disputes.
The decision to retain Quinn Emanuel’s global co-managing partner restores Burck’s status as an outside counsel for Trump family legal battles. The Trump Organization fired him as an outside ethics counsel when it learned he was working for Harvard at the time the university sued the administration for freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding.
President Donald Trump’s son, Eric, said he fired Burck because he viewed the litigation for Harvard as a conflict. Earlier the day of the firing, President Trump urged his company to get “rid of him ASAP!”
Burck and Quinn Emanuel declined to comment. World Liberty Financial didn’t immediately respond to a comment request.
Burck and colleagues at Quinn Emanuel are defending the crypto company against billionaire investor Justin Sun’s allegations of fraud and extortion.
Sun, an early backer of the project and a supporter of President Trump, alleged in his complaint an “illegal scheme” that caused him and his companies “hundreds of millions of dollars in damages” by freezing his tokens.
Eric Trump, a co-founder of the project, called the lawsuit “ridiculous” in a post on X. Trump’s son Don Jr., and Zach Witkoff, the son of special envoy Steve Witkoff, also founded World Liberty Financial in the months leading up to Trump’s re-election to the White House.
Sun said he invested $45 million in World Liberty tokens before the company allegedly pressured him to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to the underperforming stablecoin and installed controls to prevent him from selling his tokens.
Sun is represented by Keker Van Nest & Peters, one of the few firms where partners have publicly criticized President Trump outside the courtroom. Partner Robert Van Nest, one of Sun’s lawyers, called on peer firms to speak out against the White House’s punitive campaign against lawyers and firms for representing clients who have opposed the president.
The case is Sun et al v. World Liberty Financial LLC, N.D. Cal., 3:26-cv-03360-JD, 4/30/26
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Learn more about Bloomberg Law or Log In to keep reading:
See Breaking News in Context
Bloomberg Law provides trusted coverage of current events enhanced with legal analysis.
Already a subscriber?
Log in to keep reading or access research tools and resources.