‘Wildly Unethical’: Biden Donor's Law Firm Attacked Republican Client, Withheld Legal Docs
A prominent national law firm that donates prolifically to Democrats attacked its own client, Kansas attorney general Kris Kobach (R.), and withheld work product from the Republican’s office after he fired the firm for subpar performance, in what Kobach’s office viewed as a major ethical breach by a firm recently sanctioned for using AI software to write legal briefings.
Kobach fired Morgan & Morgan, the firm of prominent Joe Biden supporter John Morgan, in March 2023 from handling a state lawsuit against natural gas companies accused of price gouging. Kobach said the firm’s "performance was not up to what we expected."
Lawyers in Kobach’s office asked the firm for all of the records it had compiled during the case, a standard request in any attorney-client relationship. But Morgan & Morgan lawyers stonewalled the request, according to attorneys in Kobach’s office and emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
"We have work product we are not returning in the form of spreadsheets, deficiency notices, and transcripts which you placed in a few folders for us and are also located in our share drives," Morgan & Morgan attorney Douglas Acklin wrote to colleagues on March 31, 2023.
Morgan & Morgan, which bills itself as "America’s Largest Injury Firm," also removed organizational codes from 10,000 documents they returned to Kobach’s office, a gratuitous step that attorneys there believe was meant to complicate their case.
And in one exchange with a Kobach deputy, Morgan & Morgan attorney James Young accused Kobach of engaging in "coordinated political hackery" with the oil and gas industry, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and others.
"From an attorney ethics perspective, this is wildly unethical," said a person involved in the discussions with Morgan & Morgan. "Deliberately withholding documents that we were on contract for that should be owned by us. I was flabbergasted that they were taking that position."
The revelation comes amid a rough patch for the Florida-based Morgan & Morgan, which handles cases ranging from slip and fall accidents to dog bites to environmental cases. Last month, a federal judge fined three Morgan & Morgan attorneys for citing fake cases generated by an AI chatbot as part of a personal injury lawsuit against Walmart.
The ethics concerns and political leanings could raise red flags for other Republican states and municipalities in business with Morgan & Morgan.
Morgan & Morgan lawyers donated $4.5 million to Democratic candidates and causes between 2017 and 2023, according to FEC filings. John Morgan, the firm’s founder, was one of former president Joe Biden’s closest donors and supporters. Morgan, who hosted multiple fundraisers for Biden, stood by Biden amid calls last year for the Democrat to drop out of the presidential race because of concerns about his health and mental acuity.
Morgan, who is reportedly considering a run for Florida governor, has ingratiated himself with the Biden family. He flew Biden’s brother, Frank Biden, to the presidential inauguration in 2021 on his private jet and considered hiring the Biden brother to work at Morgan & Morgan, Politico reported.
"Between the recent sanctions proceedings over use of AI case citations and this revelation about trying to withhold case materials from a former client, it may well be that Morgan & Morgan's days of working for states are numbered," said O.H. Skinner, a former solicitor general for Arizona and executive director of Alliance for Consumers. "These are not minor infractions, they go to the reliability of the firm vis-a-vis the public trust."
The Wall Street Journal editorial board in 2023 questioned why red states hired the firm for commission-based cases given the firm’s position as one of the Democratic Party’s biggest supporters.
"One mystery of modern politics is why so many Republican-led states employ trial lawyers who file junk lawsuits and donate to their political opponents," the editorial board wrote on March 7, 2023.
The board praised Kobach and Iowa attorney general Breanna Bird for dropping Morgan & Morgan from handling litigation on behalf of the state. The board took issue with firms like Morgan & Morgan that handle cases based on contingency fees, arguing that those arrangements often benefit trial lawyers at the expense of states.
"Trial lawyers get huge fees on jackpot lawsuits, then feed their winnings back to politicians as campaign cash," the editorial board wrote.
Morgan, who founded the firm in 1988, stands by its work for Kobach’s office and says he believes they were fired for political reasons.
"We maintain that our firing was politically motivated and hurt Kansans, who will never see justice since the AG walked away from the case earlier this year," Morgan told the Free Beacon. "We fulfilled every obligation we had during the transition, and the record supports that we did everything by the books."
But employees in Kobach’s office dispute that characterization, while admitting it is not a surprise that Morgan & Morgan would be upset at being dropped from the Kansas case.
"What was a surprise was the completely scummy way that they responded to what was ultimately an ordinary business decision that attorneys deal with every day," the source said.
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