Judicial Notice (08.26.23): This Means War
Trump's latest celebrity lawyer, lawsuits against three top Biglaw firms, another Cravath partner departure, and other legal news from the week that was.
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Sigh. The last full week of August is in the rearview mirror, and we all know what that means: Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer, is around the corner. As someone who loves summer and its relaxed feel, I’m sorry to see it go. My husband Zach vigorously dissents; he’s happy to see summer leave us, and he hopes the door doesn’t hit it on its (disgustingly humid) way out.
If you, like me, are a devoted listener to Advisory Opinions, then you might have heard in the most recent episode that I will be filling in for Sarah Isgur, who will be taking a month of parental leave for the birth of her second son. I say “filling in” rather than “replacing” because Sarah is, as noted by her co-host David French, irreplaceable. I’m honored to be, as David put it, Austin Reaves to her LeBron (but unlike Reaves, I don’t make $14 million a year).
Now, on to the news.
Lawyer of the Week: Steven Sadow.
Although it is literally last week’s news, the Georgia criminal case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis against former President Donald Trump dominated this week’s news as well. The media provided extensive coverage of Trump and his 18 co-defendants presenting themselves for booking at the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in Atlanta, and Trump’s mugshot went viral. Regardless of your feelings about Trump, you must give him props for that arresting expression in his painterly mugshot.
Although it didn’t get as much coverage as his mugshot, Trump made a major change to his legal team: he replaced his lead lawyer, high-flying defense lawyer Drew Findling, with another top trial attorney, Steven H. Sadow (pronounced SAY-dow). A Trumpworld source told CNN that Findling’s firing wasn’t because of his performance as a lawyer in the case. Trump’s other attorney, former prosecutor and veteran trial lawyer Jennifer Little, will stay on the team and work with Sadow as co-counsel.
Swapping Findling for Sadow struck me as curious, since it’s not like Trump replaced a courtroom brawler with a white-shoe Biglaw partner (or the other way around). Findling and Sadow have similar profiles: both are highly regarded, aggressive courtroom advocates, unafraid of going to trial on behalf of colorful clients, often from the music world. Findling, who refers to himself as the #BillionDollarLawyer on Instagram, has represented the likes of Cardi B, Gucci Mane, Migos, and the late Young Dolph (who gave him the “billion dollar lawyer” nickname). Similarly, Sadow boasts a client roster that includes luminaries like Usher, T.I., and Rick Ross.
It’s true that the politically liberal Findling criticized Trump before having him as a client, at one point calling him “the racist architect of fraudulent Trump University.” But presumably Trump was aware of this before hiring Findling, since the first step in Trumpworld vetting is seeing whether the candidate has ever spoken negatively of the Donald (which explains why many prominent right-of-center lawyers never got to serve in the Trump Administration). And, interestingly enough, Sadow is also left-of-center and a former Trump critic. As noted by Law360, he successfully litigated against Georgia’s anti-sodomy law in 1998, and after last year’s Dobbs decision, he offered pro bono representation to doctors prosecuted for performing abortions. As for his Trump comments, back in 2017 he described himself as “not a DT supporter.”
One possible reason for the switch: Steve Sadow has extensive experience with RICO, the federal anti-racketeering statute, and its Georgia state-law counterpart. One of Sadow’s most high-profile RICO cases involved the Gold Club, a now-defunct strip club where celebrities received sexual favors. Perhaps that resonated with Trump, whose views on what “a star” can get away with are notorious.
In memoriam:
Carol Robles-Román—a Latina lawyer in New York who, in the words of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, “devoted herself to public service and made a noteworthy difference both in the lives of Latinos and all New Yorkers”—passed away at 60, from lung cancer.
Justin Peacock—a Yale Law grad and lawyer who wrote an acclaimed novel before transitioning into television writing—passed away at 52, from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
May they rest in peace.
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