‘Dark Mood’ Hits Miami Lawyer Gathering Amid Trump Overhaul

The alcohol flowed freely as is customary on the sidelines of the white-collar defense bar’s biggest annual conference on the Miami waterfront.

But the aura was unmistakably different this year as some 1,400 lawyers, many of whom work for the biggest US law firms, gathered to talk enforcement trends and mingle late into the night at rooftop parties.

Tumult in Washington left many in attendance last week anxious and afraid—about the new administration and their bottom line.

The retinue of Justice Department officials who typically announce new policies at the conference skipped this year’s event, which only increased the unease. Lawyers stood up during two separate panels to berate speakers for ignoring the weight of what’s happening.

“It’s a dark mood,” Simon Gaugush, a Carlton Fields LLP partner in Tampa Bay and former federal prosecutor, said. The underlying vibe was “anxiety, when usually it’s energy.”

Hints of Normalcy

Lawyers arrived at the Hyatt Regency last week for the American Bar Association conference with a broad overhaul of the nation’s largest law enforcement agency already underway.

On top of firings and resignations, the Trump administration paused enforcement of a foreign bribery law, and moved to end crypto investigations and a corruption case against New York mayor Eric Adams. Memos issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi also signaled curbs of white-collar crime initiatives in favor of immigration and cartel enforcement.

Still, the conference maintained at least a veneer of normalcy, with a panel on money laundering and asset forfeiture—featuring talk of the seizure of Russian oligarchs’ yachts—outdrawing one on tax enforcement.

Richard Donoghue, who leads the white-collar defense practice at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, argued during an enforcement panel that a Trump order pausing cases under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act— a major revenue engine for firms representing international businesses—didn’t represent a death knell.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly complained about the law, though Donoghue predicted a “different type of FCPA” enforcement will eventually emerge that remains plenty active.

“I don’t think we’re going to be out of work any time soon,” Donoghue, a former principal associate deputy attorney general in the first Trump administration, said.

“That’s reassuring,” Zuckerman Spaeder partner Aitan Goelman deadpanned in response, sparking laughs from the crowd.

The conference featured the usual mix of parties, with specialized cocktails like the “Wells Notice,” a nod to letters sent by the SEC giving investigation targets formal notice, and servers walking around with trays of appetizers and old-fashioneds.

‘Rome is Burning’

But the unease of the lawyers in attendance was also hard to miss.

On the conference’s first day, Edward Shohat, a Miami-based partner at Jones Walker, grabbed an open microphone following an afternoon panel and spoke out against the Trump administration’s actions, including the “destruction of the independence of the DOJ.”

“Why are we acting as if it’s business as usual,” Shohat said to audible cheers from the crowd.

Goelman, an event organizer who moderated the panel, pushed back: “I don’t think anyone on this stage or any of the speakers at this conference believes that what’s going on is normal.”

A couple days later, Subodh Chandra, an attorney who runs a civil rights and criminal defense firm in Cleveland, sat in the crowd for a panel on ethics and “challenges to the rule of law.” At its end, he told the remaining conference goers the discussion felt like an attempt to be civil while the “house is burning down.”

“Rome is burning,” he said.

‘Selective Enforcement’

Several senior DOJ officials who planned to speak at the ABA event despite the administration change canceled at the last minute, said Raymond Banoun, a lawyer who’s helped run the conference for decades.

Their absence added to the sense of uncertainty among lawyers. During one panel, a speaker quipped that their lack of answers could be blamed on the DOJ failing to show.

At the same time, some participants talked openly about how all the changes created an opening for defense counsel to try to get their case dropped.

Shohat, the Jones Walker attorney, said he asked Trump Justice Department leaders to drop a case against his client David Rivera, a former US congressman who was charged with acting as an unregistered agent for the Venezuelan government.

The case clashes with a new DOJ memo limiting foreign agent cases to those involving “traditional espionage,” Shohat said, but officials informed him they wouldn’t intervene.

Shohat, speaking to a room that gathered for the panel on FCPA enforcement, said he’s considering a “selective enforcement” argument for Rivera’s defense.

Souring Relations

The DOJ didn’t share a reason for its absence, but actions from the administration suggest relations with the private bar are souring.

On the second day of the conference, the White House issued an executive order seeking to sanction Perkins Coie LLP, the law firm that represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. A day prior, Bondi’s chief of staff in a post on X called the ABA a “left-wing activist group.”

In an opening speech at the conference, Goelman, a Washington-based lawyer, defended the importance of the event, calling it an example of “civil society.” He admitted a lot was lost without the DOJ.

“Hopefully,” he said, “they’ll be back next year.”