Former U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. in his office at the U.S. Department of Justice in June. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/ ALMIn the year since Democrats won control of the House of Representatives, they’ve been tied up in several legal fights with the Trump administration and efforts to defend federal laws the Justice Department has abandoned.
House general counsel Douglas Letter was hired in January to lead the team, and has expanded the office, featuring eight attorneys and three law clerks.
But with roughly a dozen lawsuits on his docket and an impeachment fight on Capitol Hill, the House authorized Letter to get outside help, pro bono or not, to help with the courtroom fights.
Here’s a rundown on all the outside lawyers and firms the House has tapped to help.
Munger, Tolles & Olson
Former Solicitor General Don Verrilli and his firm were the first to jump in the House legal battles, signing onto the House’s motion to intervene to defend the Affordable Care Act at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Verrilli successfully defended Obamacare before the Supreme Court when he was solicitor general during the Obama administration. After the Fifth Circuit ruled in Texas’ favor in its challenge to the law, he could find himself again arguing in favor of the health care law before the justices.
Hogan Lovells
Former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, also a faculty member with ICAP, has also been helping with the House lawsuits. In addition to the female genital mutilation ban, the Hogan Lovells partner helped out with the census citizenship litigation.
(L to R) Carter Phillips and Virginia Seitz, Sidley Austin. Courtesy photoSidley Austin
Sidley Austin partners Carter Phillips, Virginia Seitz and Joseph Guerra have all signed on to help the House sue the Trump administration to block the diversion of military funds toward the construction of a wall on the southern border.
The lawsuit, filed after Trump declared a national emergency last year to end a record-long partial government shutdown, was quickly dismissed by U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden of the District of Columbia after he found the House didn’t have standing to file the complaint.
The Big Law partners joined the case once the House filed its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Oral arguments are now scheduled for Feb. 18.
Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber
Appellate heavyweights at Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber entered the fray of subpoena fights in late October, as House lawyers pushed the D.C. Circuit to speed up the timeline for enforcing the subpoena for tax records from Trump’s private accounting firm, Mazars.
Roy Englert Jr., Lawrence Robbins, Hunter Smith, Alan Strasser and Jennifer Windom—all with Robbins Russell—have worked on the Mazars case, as well as the challenge on a similar House subpoena to Deutsche Bank and Capital One as the cases made their way up the Supreme Court. Firm associate Brandon Arnold also signed onto the Supreme Court petition in the Deutsche Bank case.
The justices have agreed to hear the Mazars and Deutsche Bank cases, consolidating them and scheduling oral arguments for March.
Arnold & Porter
Most recently, four lawyers from Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer have stepped in to help on the case over the subpoena for requested impeachment inquiry witness Charles Kupperman.
Daniel Jacobson, Stanton Jones, Sally Pei and Elisabeth Theodore all filed notices of appearance in the case in early December. Jacobson previously worked as a White House lawyer in the Obama administration, and Theodore was a special counsel at the FBI.
The case seems destined for a quiet end, as U.S. District Judge Richard Leon focused oral arguments this month on whether the case was moot after the House withdrew the subpoena for Kupperman’s testimony.
Debevoise & Plimpton. Credit: ALMDebevoise & Plimpton
In the most recent lawsuit filed by the House, attorneys at Debevoise & Plimpton are helping the House Oversight and Reform Committee in their bid to compel testimony and documents from Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross over the attempted census citizenship question.
The committee, under the leadership of late Rep. Elijah Cummings, voted earlier this year to hold Barr and Ross in contempt for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas for that information. This lawsuit builds off evidence apparently obtained by House Democrats showing the “true origin” behind the citizenship question, but still seeks other documents withheld by Trump administration officials.
Debevoise & Plimpton’s David O’Neil—a top official at the DOJ’s criminal division during the Obama administration—is listed on the case, along with firm associates Laura O’Neill and Nathaniel Johnson, and counsel Anna Moody.
Joshua Geltzer, executive director, left, and Mary McCord, senior litigator from practice, right, of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. Photo: Brent Futrell/Georgetown LawGeorgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection
The academic center, which offers pro bono legal help, has been a go-to for the House general counsel’s office throughout its litigation. Letter tapped ICAP as his office unsuccessfully tried to intervene in a case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to defend a federal ban on female genital mutilation.
The institute has also been involved in the lawsuit seeking former White House counsel Don McGahn’s testimony from the start, and was recently tapped to help out in the suit for grand jury materials redacted from the Mueller report. ICAP also filed a U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief in favor of the House over the Trump administration’s failed effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
ICAP’s executive director, Joshua Geltzer, and legal director Mary McCord are both DOJ alumni. Senior counsels Annie Owens and Seth Wayne also previously worked at the Justice Department, and counsel Daniel Rice has also been listed on briefs.
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