Ex-Skadden Partner Talks Taking on Trump With New Solo Firm

Benjamin Klubes is a Big Law expat who just founded his own litigation-focused boutique firm—and he’s not alone.

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Other former partners at larger law firms are now either moving to smaller litigation-only firms or, like Klubes, starting their own. In this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Klubes talks with Bloomberg Law reporter Tatyana Monnay about why he thinks these boutique firms are better suited to taking on the Trump administration than firms like Skadden, where he was a partner in the 2000s.

“The issues that seemed to be driving a lot of Big Law capitulation were the transactional practices and the clients in those practices that believed that they were going to suffer as a result of retaliation by the Trump administration,” he says. “That of course just isn’t part of my practice or many boutique litigation practices.”

Klubes also says new technology, particularly AI, can mitigate some of the disadvantages of starting a small firm. “Document reviews are much more subject to technological innovation and reducing the need for a mass number of lawyers to be thrown at a case,” he says. “AI can do it faster and typically, frankly, more efficiently.”

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