According to a November 10, 2020 article in The American Lawyer’s legal publication Law.Com, The Lincoln Project, a political action committee founded by former Republican figureheads is funding a $500,000 advertising campaign targeting Jones Day and the much smaller Columbus based law firm Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP after they purportedly took on representation of President Trump and the GOP in their claims for election irregularities.  According to published reports, the campaign against Jones Day includes TV ads already in production, and a large social media push against the firm, its partners, and some of Jones Day’s largest clients.

Some of the tweets ask followers to create fake “LinkedIn” pages and harass firm attorneys by messengering them and asking how they can work for an organization that is trying to overturn the will of the American people. Let me say right off the top that I am not a supporter of President Trump, and I do not support any lawsuits based on unsupported claims of voter fraud or any efforts to slow down or block President-elect Biden’s transition. President-elect Biden fairly won the election and the President’s decision to try to block the transition based on his unsupported claims are wrong on every level.  However, The Lincoln Project’s campaign sets a very dangerous precedent and pushes America’s cancel culture onto a whole new, unacceptable and very dangerous level.  

The Lincoln Project’s crusade to cancel Jones Day and Porter Wright started with this tweet on November 10, 2020.

That tweet by The Lincoln Project started a rash of other tweets including demands that not only the law firms pay the price but that their clients pay the price as well for the firms’ representation.

Other tweets urged followers to target employees at the law firms with the aim being to cancel the clients, the firms, and their lawyers.

An opinion columnist in the Washington Post called The Lincoln Project’s campaign “a reminder that Trump’s efforts to overturn the results rely heavily on the complicity of many other actors — and that aggressive efforts will be needed to hold them accountable for it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/10/inside-lincoln-projects-new-campaign-targeting-trumps-law-firm/

Articles like these have one ultimate goal, to punish Jones Day and Porter Wright and their lawyers for taking on cases with which the media disagrees. Not only are the law firms being targeted for cancellation but their clients are being targeted by the media and by twitter in an effort to cancel them as well, solely because the clients chose Jones Day or Porter Wright to represent them.

Cancel culture per Wikipedia is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles online on social media, in the real world, or both.  Per dictionary dot com, cancel culture is the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures or companies after doing something offensive or deemed so.  Now cancel culture is making its way to “Big Law,” and Jones Day is the not so fortunate target.  

Big Law, the esteemed group of which Jones Day is a member, is the nickname for the world’s largest and most successful law firms. Reaching this category puts your firm amongst the crème de la crème of law firms. Partners at these firms charge upwards of $1,000 an hour for their work. Partners pull down as much as $5MM a year, and new associates, right out of law school, can make as much as $160,000 a year.   BigLaw firms usually are headquartered in big cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Jones Day, however, is headquartered in a somewhat nondescript building in Cleveland, Ohio. With all this wealth and prestige, why should we care that BigLaw is the latest victim of cancel culture?  We should because this is a dangerous precedent, and leads down a slippery slope from which we may not return.

Jones Day in trying to defend itself against the onslaught issued a statement saying, “Jones Day is not representing President Trump, his campaign, or any affiliated party in any litigation alleging voter fraud. Jones Day also is not representing any entity in any litigation challenging or contesting the results of the 2020 general election. Media reports to the contrary are false.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201110006243/en/Jones-Day-Statement-Regarding-Election-Litigation

Vivia Chen of The American Lawyer’s Law.Com took umbrage with the statement in her commentary, “How Crafty: Law Firms that Promote Diversity and Voter Suppression!,” writing on November 11, 2020 that in her “humble opinion, thwarting mail-in ballots is a stab at voter suppression. (The Times reported that six Jones Day lawyers thought the lawsuit “would only undermine the public confidence in the election” because the late ballots wouldn’t affect the outcome in Pennsylvania.) And if you’re touting your creds as a firm that values diversity and equality, it’s eroding your brand.”

The much smaller midwestern regional firm Porter Wright is likely more vulnerable and probably even more damaged by the campaign. Chen calls Porter Wrights’ role even more reprehensible than Jones Day’s stating, “now it’s up there with Jones Day, sharing the spotlight as a firm that suppresses votes and undermines the election process. What a way to go!”

Lawyers should not be governed by the likes and dislikes of the political polarization of this country in accepting clients for representation. What the media, twitter, The Lincoln Project, and legal writers don’t recognize and should is that lawyers take unpopular cases because that is what lawyers do. Lawyers and their firms should not be ostracized or face penalties such as loss of business or “cancellation” if they choose to defend a hated or hateful client.

The American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct provide that, “A lawyer’s representation of a client … does not constitute an endorsement of the client’s political, economic, social or moral views or activities.”  Yes, lawyers take cases that they may not agree with, they may even have clients who they do not like, but lawyers are paid to provide legal services within the confines of the ethical rules. Both state and federal civil rules provide for penalties for lawyers who file frivolous litigation.

Federal Civ. R. 11(b) entitled “Representations to the Court” provides that lawyers are certifying “By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper—whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it— that to the best of his or her knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances that the filing:

(1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation;

(2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;

(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and

(4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information.

Let the ethics rules and the state and federal civil rules be the “decider” as to whether lawyers are filing frivolous cases, not the media and not a political action committee. This cancel culture is dangerous. The Lincoln Project, legal pundits, partisan commentators, cable news mouthpieces, and the twitter-sphere need to put their cancellation stamp back in the box, and leave these lawyers and their law firms alone.