Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook turned to litigator Abbe Lowell to fend off President Donald Trump, underscoring the emerging role of smaller law firms willing to take on the White House.
Cook plans to sue Trump to block the president from removing her, Lowell said Tuesday. That sets the stage for a legal fight over Trump’s latest effort to control the US central bank, arguing that Cook should be fired over allegations that she lied on a mortgage application.
It’s the latest example of boutique litigation shops filling a gap created as some larger law firms shy away from going toe-to-toe with Trump. Lowell, a veteran litigator who has represented clients on both sides of the aisle, left Big Law’s Winston & Strawn to launch his own firm to represent clients facing off with the administration in court.
“He knows that the large law firms have business pending in front of the government for which they have clients that they don’t want to jeopardize,” Lowell said of Trump. “He has no leverage against the law firms that don’t provide him that.”
Lowell is one of several litigators that left their firms in the wake of Trump’s attacks on the legal industry. Nine massive firms struck deals with the president, pledging nearly $1 billion in free legal services to avoid executive orders like those Trump lobbed at their rivals. Some that did not reach deals have taken a more cautious approach to try to stay off the target list.
Lowell & Associates is now home to expats from Winston and Skadden, one of the firms that reached an agreement with Trump. Other new boutiques have cropped up, like the Washington Litigation Group started by retired former Big Law partners, former federal prosecutors, and a litigator who left Milbank LLP after the firm secured a deal with Trump.
Spin-Off Era
Benjamin Klubes is a former partner at Skadden and Buckley LLP, which was recently acquired by Orrick. He started a litigation boutique in Washington last month after leaving a role at the Housing and Urban Development Department during the Biden administration.
“I saw both a need to be free of the kind of conflicts that arose when Big Law firms agreed to deals with the administration or hesitancy for fear of getting the evil eye of the administration turned on the law firms to do the kind of cases I wanted to do,” Klubes said.
Dunn Isaacson Rhee is among the highest-profile new firms. Its founders left Wall Street’s Paul Weiss shortly after the firm became the first to reach a Trump deal, pledging $40 million in free legal services on shared causes in exchange for the president dropping an executive order against it.
The Dunn Isaacson group is now up to more than 25 lawyers, while former government lawyers like Klubes are hanging out their shingles with smaller shops. A trio of fired Education Department lawyers opened Sligo Law Group to advise education entities. Two ex-Justice Department litigators created Civil Service Law Center to challenge federal terminations.
Litigators fleeing large firms with extensive corporate client lists that limit the cases they can take isn’t a new dynamic, according to NYU legal ethics professor Stephen Gillers. But it’s highlighted by Trump’s war against perceived enemies within Big Law.
“We will see greater competition with Big Law by the boutique firms that Big Law years ago began to swallow up,” Gillers said.
Podcast: Ex-Skadden Partner Talks Taking on Trump With New Solo Firm
Many of the country’s top firms prioritize lucrative corporate transactions over trial work, leaving some litigators feeling left out. At Kirkland & Ellis, the country’s largest firm by revenue and one of those that did a deal with Trump, some alumni describe litigation as an add-on “service” for corporate clients.
Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp said his firm’s White House deal was necessary to resolve the “unprecedented threat” and “existential crisis” posed by the order, which threatened its lawyers access to federal buildings and its clients’ government contracts. The deal and the exits that followed helped cement the firm’s shift to a focus on deals for high-end private equity players like Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, and Bain Capital, which has boosted revenue and profits.
Still, the size and range of capabilities that comes with larger firms can be crucial in high-stakes, complicated court battles. Visa Inc., for example, tapped veteran trial lawyer Beth Wilkinson and her small firm in 2024 for its defense against a Justice Department antitrust suit, but the company also signed on litigators from 1,000-attorney Arnold & Porter.
Risk Tolerance
Lowell says he charges even his corporate clients at lower rates than Big Law firms. His work is split about 50-50 between corporate litigation and public interest matters. The firm is representing a fired federal prosecutor who worked on Jan. 6 prosecutions and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is also accused of making false statements in mortgage documents, in her personal capacity.
Boutiques, so far, have managed to escape blow back from Trump while still taking on matters adverse to the administration or suing the president directly.
Sean Hecker of Manhattan’s Hecker Fink is representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant whose accidental deportation has been at the center of a national debate over Trump’s immigration crackdown. Roberta Kaplan, Hecker’s former law firm partner, represented E. Jean Carroll in her $83 million defamation case against the president last year.
Lowell said it’s crucial for litigation boutiques to continue to flex their tolerance for conflict and risk, especially on matters adverse to Trump.
“If we take ourselves off the battlefield, they have won without a fight,” he said.
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