In the latest development in what has become a high-stakes battle between the administration and the legal community, prominent Washington defense attorney Abbe Lowell and two of the most vocal critics of established law firms’ deals with President Donald Trump are joining to start a new firm and mount a more aggressive response to Trump’s pressure campaign.
A former Justice Department official who has connections to the big firms in Washington reported believing the move reflected increasing tensions within the most prominent legal institutions and that it could be a “harbinger” of similar moves to come.
Joining Lowell at the new firm, to be called Lowell and Associates, are Brenna Trout Frey and Rachel Cohen, both of whom resigned publicly in recent weeks from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, one of the highest-grossing firms in the United States, over what Trout Frey described in a LinkedIn post as the firm’s “capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands for fealty and protection money.”
Trump has referred to the deal as “essentially a settlement” and said, “We appreciate Skadden coming to the table.”
The new firm is set to represent several clients who have been foes of Trump in some way and have been targeted by his administration, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, former Trump administration official-turned-critic Miles Taylor and whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid, six sources familiar with the firm’s plans told NBC News. The firm will also represent clients involved in litigation over grant funding revoked by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and other parts of the administration.
In a news release about the new firm, Lowell said it was “spurred by the need for innovative ways to represent clients with complex legal and political challenges while confronting the rising attacks on the legal system itself.”
A source familiar with the efforts called the move “a reflection that big law firms were caught totally unprepared for — and unwilling — to meet this moment of crisis.”
In a statement, Trout Frey said, “[W]e are here to litigate, win, and help reinforce the legal guardrails that hold our democracy together.”
Lowell’s former firm, Winston and Strawn, which he left recently, has not yet been publicly identified as a target of Trump’s, though current and former employees told NBC News that they believed Lowell’s exit decreases the risk that it will become one.
Lowell was most recently in the public eye for representing Hunter Biden in the two criminal cases against him, as well as during House Republicans’ investigation of the Biden family. At times his strategy for defending Biden with the public drew criticism from his colleagues, as well as from former President Joe Biden’s senior political aides. (Two associates who supported Lowell at Biden’s trial in Delaware last summer are also joining the new firm.)
But he has defended people on both sides of the aisle, including Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. He also attended inauguration-related events this year as a guest of prominent Trump donors, and he was spotted socializing with multiple Cabinet officials the night before Inauguration Day.
