“Kirkland Stops Repping Novartis After Regeneron Sought DQ” —

• “A New York federal judge accepted the withdrawal Thursday of the entire Kirkland & Ellis LLP team that recently joined Novartis Pharma’s legal team battling antitrust allegations over the eye medication Eylea, just a week after plaintiff Regeneron Pharmaceuticals sought their disqualification over an ‘unthinkable’ conflict of interest by the lawyers, whose firm previously represented Regeneron.”
• “In endorsing the withdrawal of all five Kirkland attorneys, U.S. District Judge Philip M. Halpern put an end to the brewing fight sparked by Regeneron’s June 17 notice it would move to disqualify the lawyers because Kirkland had spent more than two years helping Regeneron ‘devise a global strategy for protecting its product Eylea’ intellectual property from proposed biosimilars.”
• “The Kirkland team had only begun appearing for Novartis May 30, stepping in beside Novartis’ main counsel at White & Case LLP to defend against the five-year-old suit accusing Novartis of concealing the true history of an eye syringe treatment’s development from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to edge Regeneron out of the market.”
• “Kirkland’s entry set off alarms at Regeneron, according to the June 17 letter brief from an attorney the company hired for the disqualification bid, Kimo S. Peluso of Sher Tremonte LLP. In it, Peluso pointed to the ‘billable work’ Kirkland attorneys performed for Regeneron from March 2020 to June 2022 helping devise a global legal strategy for ‘addressing possibly infringing biosimilars,’ especially in Europe and the United Kingdom.”
• “‘This case concerns Regeneron’s claims that Novartis and Vetter Pharma colluded to exclude Eylea prefilled syringe formulations from the market, in part through fraudulent patent filings. It should be unthinkable that Kirkland would litigate this case against Regeneron,’ Peluso said at the time.”
• “According to Peluso, Regeneron raised a conflict of interest objection to Kirkland’s appearance June 3. He said Kirkland responded with assertions that ‘its U.S. litigators were screened from Regeneron confidences.’ It wasn’t enough for Regeneron.”
• “‘Kirkland’s purported screens offer zero comfort. The screen imposed on June 3 (this month) was obviously a belated scramble, imposed after Kirkland had already appeared in this case, likely weeks after it was hired. More troubling is Kirkland’s assertion that it has screened the prior representation since September 2019. That screen has not been effective,’ Peluso said, pointing to a June 2020 email from a Kirkland U.K. patent attorney, Nicola Dagg, encouraging Regeneron to hire her U.S. partners to defend the since-nixed syringe patent.”
• “Peluso also said the conflict of interest issues directly implicate Hurst, who was copied on a January 2020 email from Dagg encouraging Regeneron to meet with Kirkland’s U.S.-based antitrust litigators. According to the letter, Hurst attended a meeting in London ‘under the calendar subject line ‘Kirkland Eylea – antitrust discussion.””

“Quinn Emanuel faces another [conflict charge] by Binance founder” —

• “The founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is accusing Washington, D.C.-based law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan of representing him while having a conflict of interest. In a Florida court filing, Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said that after he sought to address the alleged conflict, Quinn Emanuel partner William A. Burck terminated his representation of Zhao.”
• “On Monday, June 9, Burck filed notices to withdraw as counsel for Zhao in a looming State of Florida Office of Regulation administrative trial, as well as other civil and regulatory matters, Zhao’s filing says.”
• “In a response filed the same day, Zhao said the withdrawal came 24 hours after Burck ‘threatened Mr. Zhao that (Quinn Emanuel) would terminate its engagement of all matters’ with him unless Zhao abandoned a confidential arbitration he had initiated to address the conflict of interest.”
• “Zhao’s filing states that Quinn Emanuel has represented both him and an unnamed opposing party in a foreign arbitration since 2020. Zhao asserts that the dual representation placed the firm ‘on both sides of the same matter,’ a situation he argues is barred by the District of Columbia’s Rules of Professional Conduct. He asked the Florida administrative judge to postpone his July 31 hearing by six months, and to order immediate transfer of his files, stating that the withdrawal, coming ‘on the eve of critical deadlines,’ will otherwise impair his defense.”
• “In April, President Donald Trump urged his sons to fire Burck, who represented the Trump Organization, after learning Quinn Emanuel simultaneously represented Harvard University in litigation against the Trump administration.”
• Filing: here

“Inside the fallout at Paul, Weiss after the firm’s deal with Trump” —

• “Three months ago, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was under attack. The global law firm had just become the target of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump directing the firm and its clients to be cut off from government contracts, and for firm lawyers to lose their security clearances and be restricted from entering government buildings or dealing with federal employees.”
• “Paul, Weiss wasn’t the first firm to be the focus of such an executive order, but it would go on to be the first to negotiate a deal with the White House in order to get it lifted. At the time, the firm’s leader Brad Karp said he was trying to save his team from an ‘existential crisis.'”
• “Since then, the firm has endured. But the decision to strike a deal has led to high-profile departures among partners and drawn condemnation from Democrats and others in the legal community.”
• “After Karp made a deal with Trump, at least 10 partners in the litigation department have resigned from the firm, including several with close ties to Democrats. A group of the departing partners have joined together to start their own firm where they will continue to represent tech giants like Meta and Google, and another has jumped ship to one of the four firms that chose to fight the administration in court. While the firms that have fought Trump have been vindicated in multiple swift rulings, Paul, Weiss has been dealing with fallout in the aftermath of the deal, according to three former attorneys and five others with knowledge of the firm granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal dynamics.”
• “‘They made a calculated decision,’ said Elizabeth Grossman, executive director of government watchdog group Common Cause Illinois and a former Paul, Weiss associate who helped organize alumni opposition to the deal. ‘They were thinking about their bottom line… I think what we’ve seen is that they made the wrong decision.'”
• “In recent weeks, five additional partners and at least eight associates, the majority of whom worked with Dunn at her previous firm and moved to Paul, Weiss around the same time as she did, have left Paul, Weiss to join Dunn and her colleagues at the fledgling firm Dunn Isaacson Rhee. Dunn and her partners have filed notices in multiple ongoing cases indicating they will continue representing big tech clients they were already representing at Paul, Weiss.”
• “‘Paul, Weiss used to be the gold standard for litigation,’ said Bryson Malcolm, founder of legal recruiting firm Mosaic Search Partners. ‘I think that reputation is waning.'”
• “Earlier this month, Paul, Weiss lost another recognizable name when the former chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Damian Williams, decamped to Jenner & Block, a much smaller firm by annual revenue. That firm had also been targeted by an executive order but successfully fought the administration in court instead of making a deal — something Williams seemed to allude to in the announcement of his move.”
• “‘I’ve seen firsthand how this firm expertly tackles the toughest cases and lives its values,’ Williams said in a press release. ‘I’m excited to join a team with an extraordinary depth of legal talent that doesn’t shy away from hard fights — and delivers results that matter.'”
• “‘We would never do anything to compromise our ability to advocate zealously on behalf of our clients, and we certainly reject any suggestion that any element of the agreement is contrary to law,’ Karp wrote in a response letter obtained by POLITICO.”
• “Meanwhile, all the firms that have fought Trump’s orders have so far won in court. Four federal judges have struck down Trump’s executive orders aimed at firms Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey as unconstitutional. The Justice Department has not taken steps to appeal those rulings and the window of time for them to do so will soon close.”
• “There may be more departures to come for Paul, Weiss. The nature of profit distribution at large firms gives partners an incentive to stay through the end of the fiscal year and the process of moving firms for partners is more lengthy and complicated than simply finding a new job willing to hire them.”
• “‘It’s a very financially unattractive time to leave and you need several months to make the move anyway,’ said a partner at a separate firm granted anonymity to speak candidly about the industry.”
• “And while top talent walks out the door, it may prove harder for Paul, Weiss to attract the next generation of lawyers.”