Pat Cipollone Joins Former Attorney General Bill Barr’s Law Firm

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone is joining former Attorney General Bill Barr’s law firm, which is bulking up with the addition of nine lawyers.

The firm Barr founded with former Facebook general counsel Ted Ullyot, called Torridon Law, is also adding former deputy White House counsels Pat Philbin and Kate Todd. The group is joining from Los Angeles-based litigation boutique Ellis George Cipollone O’Brien Annaguey, which launched its office in Washington in 2021 with Cipollone, Philbin and Todd.

“We have known Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin, and Kate Todd and worked with them both in and out of government for thirty years,” Barr said in a statement. “There is no finer team that we could imagine bringing together,”

Former White House Counsel Fred Fielding and former Acting Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Tim Shea are coming aboard as of counsel. Tara Helfman and John Coghlan are joining as partners; and Chase Harrington and Kyle West are new associates at the firm.

Barr, a former Kirkland & Ellis alum who served as attorney general under President George W. Bush and Donald Trump, and Ullyot, a former Kirkland partner, launched Torridon in late 2022. With the additions, the boutique law and consulting firm brings its headcount to 11 lawyers.

Cipollone, also a Kirkland & Ellis alum, succeeded Don McGahn as White House counsel in October 2018 for Trump and defended him at his first impeachment trial in 2020. He also played a key role in the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.

Philbin served as Trump’s deputy counsel and worked in the Justice Department during President George W. Bush’s administration.

Todd, a former partner at Wiley Rein, served as associate counsel to George W. Bush and was deputy assistant and deputy counsel to the president in the Trump administration. She also led the litigation arm of the Chamber of Commerce and was on Trump’s short list of candidates for the Supreme Court vacancy filled by Barrett.

Fielding, a former Morgan, Lewis & Bockius partner, was White House counsel to both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. He also served in the Nixon White House.

Former Solicitor General Paul Clement in a statement he looks forward to working with Torridon’s new hires, who “are outstanding advocates and advisers who know how courts think about difficult issues and who have seen almost every sort of case and crisis.”

Clement launched his own boutique, Clement & Murphy in 2022 after leaving Kirkland & Ellis over the ending of its work on Second Amendment cases.