As Big Law Shrinks From Taking on Trump, Boutiques Step Up

Four well-known litigators—Karen Dunn, Jeannie Rhee, Bill Isaacson, and Jessica Phillips—left Paul Weiss last month. Shortly thereafter, they launched Dunn Isaacson Rhee, which Dunn described as “a new litigation boutique specializing in high-stakes trials, investigations, and crisis management.”

Also last month, prominent trial lawyer Abbe Lowell announced the founding of his own boutique, Lowell and Associates. This came after his departure from Winston & Strawn, where he had co-chaired the white-collar practice.

These boutiques share something in common besides timing: I suspect they owe their existences to President Donald Trump.

Paul Weiss was the first of at least nine large law firms to reach controversial deals with the Trump administration, in which the firms agreed to provide pro bono legal services to support certain priorities of the administration. While the founding partners of Dunn Isaacson Rhee didn’t refer to the Paul Weiss settlement in announcing their departure, three out of the four partners have ties to Democratic politics—and at their new firm, they’ll enjoy greater leeway to take on cases adverse to the Trump administration.

As for Lowell, he left Winston to start Lowell and Associates shortly after taking on New York Attorney General Letitia James, the target of a Trump administration investigation, as a client. And many other clients of his new firm are also in the crosshairs of Trump, as noted in a statement he shared with me.

“In our first 30 days, we have filed a lawsuit and motion for preliminary injunction on behalf of a whistleblower attorney, Mark Zaid; co-counseled the complaint and preliminary injunction motion on behalf of AmeriCorps grantees; publicly defended Attorney General Letitia James and former DHS official Miles Taylor against the egregious and outrageous threats from this administration; drafted and filed an amicus brief for Judge Hannah Dugan; and advised immigration non-profit organizations on the administration’s executive orders.”

“These early efforts reflect not only the volume and urgency of the challenges we face, but also the trust our clients and partners are placing in us,” he added.

Of course, partners leaving Big Law to start their own firms is nothing new. It happened before Trump took office, and it will continue after he leaves office.

“It is unclear to me if the boutique creation can be meaningfully connected to the Trump executive orders,” said Indiana University law professor William Henderson, a longtime scholar of the legal profession. “Boutiques occur because partners with solid books want the autonomy to make their own decisions.”

But part of that autonomy includes the ability to take on clients and causes that it might be difficult or impossible to represent while at a large law firm. And with the Trump administration taking on such a wide range of issues and paying much closer attention to Big Law, the universe of potentially problematic representations is significantly larger now.

“I’ve challenged federal and agency overreach under every administration since President Reagan,” said Lowell. “But what sets this administration apart is the sheer scale and scope of its intrusion into nearly every aspect of American life. That’s why Lowell & Associates is here—to defend against that overreach when it matters most.”

So it’s fair to say that recent activity in the boutique space “is closely tied to the Trump administration’s attacks on the legal industry,” as one legal recruiter told me. “From my conversations with partners launching new boutiques, they want the ability and the autonomy to fight the administration in court.”

And there’s a reason these lawyers are starting their own boutiques instead of simply moving to different large law firms.

“Leaving a firm because of its deal with Trump could have massive ramifications if the new firm they joined ended up doing the same,” this recruiter explained. “So, going on their own is the best option.” (This recruiter asked to remain anonymous because of the confidential nature of their conversations with partners who have left, or are thinking of leaving, their firms.)

So yes, the Trump administration might be intensifying the move of partners from Big Law to boutiques. But it’s a trend that I predict will continue for quite some time, for at least three reasons.

First, and related to recent events, increased political polarization is making it harder for Big Law firms to take on controversial cases. Large law firms have many more stakeholders and constituencies compared with boutiques, including more clients and employees—many of whom object to the firm taking on certain hot-button representations.

But these matters can be particularly meaningful and satisfying for individual attorneys to work on—and they can come from across the political or ideological spectrum. Back in 2022, for example, Paul Clement and Erin Murphy left Kirkland & Ellis to start a boutique after Kirkland announced it would no longer represent clients in Second Amendment matters.

Second, Big Law billing rates continue to climb, hitting record highs—which many litigation clients can’t afford, at least not to the extent that corporations executing billion-dollar transactions can. Not surprisingly, Lowell cited greater flexibility in billing rates as another attraction of launching his own firm, on top of more freedom in taking cases.

Third, technology enables litigators at boutiques to handle certain matters that previously were the exclusive province of Big Law. For example, if artificial intelligence tools can review and organize massive volumes of documents, an army of associates might not be required to litigate a large and complex case.

The migration of litigators from Big Law to boutiques is a trend with the wind at its back. The Trump administration might be accelerating it, to be sure—as it’s doing with many other trends in American society. But the allure of greater autonomy for Big Law partners existed before Trump took office, and it will persist long after he’s gone.

David Lat, a lawyer turned writer, publishes Original Jurisdiction. He founded Above the Law and Underneath Their Robes, and is author of the novel “Supreme Ambitions.”

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