Davis Polk Axes Associate Over Writings Criticizing Trump

Wall Street’s Davis Polk & Wardwell fired a junior attorney following warnings over his op-eds knocking the Trump administration, according to the lawyer.

Ryan Powers, a former Davis Polk associate, says the firm fired him June 12. His profile was removed from the site immediately, Powers said in an interview. The Harvard Law graduate joined the firm’s tax group October 2023 and worked on deals for Cintas Corp. and Penske Truck Leasing.

Powers’ op-eds included critical takes on the federal government’s surveillance of the public, which highlighted Palantir Technologies. Davis Polk lawyers advised banks involved in Palantir’s 2020 stock listing. A firm human resources representative notified Powers that his content violated the firm’s internal policy because he was not granted prior permission, he said.

“The firm needs to do what it needs to do to protect whatever interests that they choose to support,” Powers said in an interview. “I understand why they are doing what they’re doing. At the same time, it’s very sad on a personal level because it ends my Big Law career sooner than I had anticipated and in a very different way than I had anticipated.”

Davis Polk declined to comment.

The firing comes amid Big Law’s continued pushback of junior lawyers’ public opinions on controversial topics. Foley & Lardner rescinded an employment offer for an incoming Muslim associate over public comments she made following the Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Davis Polk has so far avoided the vitriol the president has directed at rival operations. Trump issued directives that threaten five firms’ ability to interact with the federal government, reached agreements with nine others and targeted 20 with investigations through the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The firm is helping Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. and Crypto.com launch a series of exchange-traded funds later this year. Davis Polk hired former Trump White House lawyer Stefan Passantino as an outside lobbyist in March and removed website references to its lawyers’ work on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

“The firm should be embarrassed about it,” Powers said of the work for Trump Media. “We tout our commitment to social responsibility through our pro bono partners and the kind of causes that we take up as part of official firm practice and then we are partnering with a namesake organization to a sitting president who has not supported those values.”

Davis Polk brought in more than $2.5 billion in gross revenue last year and doled out $7.8 million in profits per equity partner, according to data from the American Lawyer. The firm has more than 1,100 attorneys.