Abbe Lowell Aids Letitia James After Winston & Strawn Exit (1)

Abbe Lowell is defending New York Attorney General Letitia James against a Trump administration investigation after leaving Winston & Strawn, his firm of the past seven years.

“Abbe Lowell is no longer at Winston,” the firm said in a statement Friday. “He left to form his own firm, allowing him to better balance his legal work, teaching, writing, and charitable work.”

The firm declined to say when Lowell departed. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lowell’s exit from Winston & Strawn follows the departure of the outside counsel for James’ office, Steven Banks, from his Big Law firm. Banks left Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison weeks after the firm struck a deal with President Donald Trump to provide $40 million in legal services in return for the repeal of an executive order.

Big Law firms have been trying to create distance between themselves and matters deemed unpopular by Trump, and eight firms besides Paul Weiss struck deals with him. Banks declined to comment on whether his departure from Paul Weiss was tied to his desire to continue representing James.

James and Trump have long been at loggerheads. She scored a $450 million civil verdict against him in 2024 over fraudulent asset valuations, and that case is on appeal before a New York state court.

She also joined litigation challenging Trump’s tariff policies and signed an amicus brief backing Susman Godfrey’s lawsuit against a Trump executive order.

“I’m fighting back against the Trump administration’s illegal and vindictive executive orders targeting law firms and undermining our democracy and our Constitution,” James said in a Thursday post on X. A spokesperson for James declined to comment.

High Profile

Lowell joined Winston & Strawn in 2018 from Norton Rose Fulbright. He was a co-chair of Winston’s white collar and regulatory and investigations practice group and through his career has had a deep bench of high-profile clients who fall on both sides of the political aisle.

He represented President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner in the investigation of alleged Russian collusion during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Lowell was also lead defense lawyer for former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden in a 2024 criminal trial.

His other clients have included Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), former Congressman Gary Condit (D-Calif.), former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, former NY state Senate member Joe Bruno, and former Illinois Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill).

Lowell sent a letter Thursday to US Attorney General Pam Bondi that responds to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte’s April 14 criminal referral concerning James. The referral accuses James of falsifying property records for a home she owns in Virginia by saying it’s her primary residence and alleges she understated the number of rooms at her home in Brooklyn.

“No one is better than you to recognize that Attorney General James is being targeted” for her work, Lowell told Bondi in the letter, obtained by Bloomberg Law. “Trump has singled out Attorney General James dating back to her campaign in 2018, and ever more so during and after the trial and verdict in New York.”

The letterhead in Lowell’s Thursday to Bondi cited Lowell & Associates. He said in the letter to Bondi he’s representing James as a private citizen.

The Justice Department declined to comment. The New York Times first reported the existence of the letter Thursday.