A legal Headache: Why Law Firms are Shunning President Trump as a Client!

Some of the top US law firms have rendered President Ronald Trump with limited legal options, with the current Russia probe about to take place.

Declined Invitations

Recently, five law firms opted to pass over the opportunity to represent Trump, after he decided to shake up his private defense week the previous week. It is anticipated that he will possibly be giving a testimony to Robert Mueller’s current investigation, in front of the special counsel.

A majority of prominent Washington lawyers have declined the opportunity, citing the recent occurrences in the previous weeks as reasons. According to multiple sources, most of the lawyers have confessed that Trump appears to be a complex and difficult client to work with and tends to rebuke some of the advice that he is offered by his lawyers.

President Trump is having a difficult time getting a highly qualified firm to represent him in the Russia probe, posing a lot of questions about his popularity

Furthermore, Trump is perceived to be particularly unpopular in the political divide and the world hence, many lawyers feel that they may harm their reputations while representing him. There are even lawyers form large firms that fear the massive backlash that might come in case their corporate clients decide to take on the difficult task of defending the President. Hence, many of them want to steer far away from any relation with the President that could certainly bring about conflicts of interest.

Negative Publicity

With how polarizing the President’s brief tenure has been, it has been quite difficult for a majority of law firms to attempt to represent him.

Even in Washington, a city with a massive legal industry, multiple lawyers, and large law firms have already been hired and designated as witnesses when dealing with the Mueller probe.  Hence, very few law firms, as well as top lawyers, can take any new clients that are at the center of the investigation.

This could very well be the first time in history that a President of the United States is having a hard time hiring an experienced, massive, and reliable legal defense team. This could pose even a bigger problem as the special prosecution digs deeper into the President’s campaign and administration.

His current legal team stands with only two lawyers present. That being lawyer Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow; both of whom are not affiliated or connected with any traditional, high-end law firm.

Protecting their business and reputation

In fact, the most recent law firms to decline the President’s invitation was Dan Webb and Tom Buchanan, who are lawyers affiliated with the firm Winston & Strawn. In a statement, the said that they were unable to take on the President’s offer because it would pose a conflict in business.

President Trump seems to have polarized the country, with law firms not keen on representing him for fear of generating negative publicity from the public

In fact, Webb and other lawyers at the firm are currently representing the Ukranian businessman Dymtro Firtash, who is currently facing charges of money laundering in Chicago; and is facing a potential extradition. Their client, Firtash, was initially a business contact to Paul Manafort, who was Trump’s former campaign chairman and is currently indicted.  Hence, this makes the Ukrainian business mogul possibly connected to the Mueller investigation.

With that being the case, it appears that Sekulow, who is the head of a non-profit religious legal group, is the only remaining lawyer of Trump’s private counsel for the Russia probe.

A legal headache

Other lawyers that also received invitations is General Ted Olson, who is the former US Solicitor General. Another lawyer, Robert Bennet, who also happened to be Bill Clinton’s attorney general, also declined the invitation.

With the resignation of his private attorney John Dowd, he adds to a long list of Trump employees that have quit being part of the presidential advisory team.

From a legal perspective, things seem to be going from bad to worse ever since his private attorney, John Dowd, resigned last week. In fact, with all the multiple rejections that the President is receiving, it’s interesting to see who will take on the momentous feat of representing him. And whether Trump will have his private defense team set up in time.