By Mike Spector and David Thomas
Feb 7 (Reuters) – Brad Karp, the chairman of high-powered U.S. law firm Paul Weiss, joined other prominent Democratic fundraisers at election night gatherings in Washington in November 2024 hoping for a Kamala Harris victory over Republican rival Donald Trump.
Karp had reached out to hundreds of corporate lawyers in a fundraising push for Harris soon after she replaced incumbent Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate in July 2024, and one of his Paul Weiss partners helped prepare the former U.S. vice president for her debate with Trump.
But Trump won the election. And his return to the presidency last year set in motion a series of events that first shook Paul Weiss and later, with the U.S. Justice Department’s release of records involving the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, led Karp to resign this week as its chairman.
Though he has not been accused of wrongdoing, the disclosures of his contacts with Epstein undid in a matter of days Karp’s longstanding grip over the firm that had cemented him as a Wall Street and Washington power broker.
“If you were going to write a Greek tragedy about a law firm leader, this is it,” a former senior Paul Weiss attorney told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
TRANSFORMING PAUL WEISS
After becoming chairman of Paul Weiss in 2008, Karp transformed it from a respected New York litigation firm to a big-money global powerhouse. And Paul Weiss lawyers and staff outpaced other major law firms in donations to Democrats during the 2024 election cycle.
Paul Weiss devoted pro bono work to progressive causes and recruited star Wall Street dealmakers alongside litigators who had served in Democratic former President Barack Obama’s administration.
Trump’s return to the White House quickly created tumult for Karp and his firm. Karp’s subsequent decision to cut a deal with Trump to rescind an executive order the president had issued punishing the firm made him the face of capitulation for some lawyers aligned with the Democratic Party.
At least a dozen partners, including the one who had advised Harris for her presidential debate, departed the firm afterward.
A bipartisan push in Congress last year, despite Trump’s objections, required the Justice Department to release files related to Epstein. A trove of emails made public at the end of January revealed extensive communications between Karp and Epstein, prompting him to resign as chairman.
Karp did not respond to requests for comment. The firm did not respond to a request for comment beyond the statement it released on Wednesday announcing his resignation.
In that statement, Karp said that “recent reporting has created a distraction and has placed a focus on me that is not in the best interests of the firm.” The firm previously had said he regretted his Epstein interactions and “never witnessed or participated in misconduct.”
Karp, whose rolodex of representations has included large Wall Street banks and the National Football League, remains at Paul Weiss serving clients, the firm said in its statement. Karp was replaced as chairman by Scott Barshay, who he had recruited in 2016 to turbocharge the firm’s mergers and acquisitions practice and other corporate work.
FROM LITIGATION TO DEALMAKING
Founded in 1875 by Samuel William Weiss and Julius Frank, the firm built a reputation as a defender of civil liberties. In the 1940s, it became the first major New York firm to name a female partner. It assisted civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education that declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
Karp joined Paul Weiss as a summer associate in 1983 and spent his entire career at the firm, rising to lead the litigation department before being elected chairman. Under his leadership, Paul Weiss became a primary defender of the financial industry, representing clients such as Citigroup and JPMorgan while maintaining deep ties to the Democratic establishment.
Over time, Karp showed an ability to develop close relationships and build consensus that allowed him to attract star rainmakers, propelling Paul Weiss to a top-tier firm with loyal institutional clients and leading litigation and transactional practices, according to Kent Zimmermann, an adviser to law firms who interviewed Karp for an upcoming book.
In recruiting Barshay, Karp increased the firm’s dealmaking firepower.
Karp frequently used Paul Weiss resources to challenge the first Trump administration and partner with civil rights and advocacy groups. The firm helped lead litigation following the 2017 white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, and participated in lawsuits against the firearms industry.
In 2018, Karp mobilized lawyers to combat Trump’s family separation policy at the U.S. border.
Karp also represented Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management, a large Wall Street investment firm. Epstein became involved in fee disputes with Black. Karp’s communications with Epstein concerning Black and other matters would ultimately contribute to the law firm leader’s resignation.
TRUMP PUNISHMENT
Paul Weiss employed lawyers who investigated Trump and sued participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by the president’s supporters in their failed effort to prevent congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory. On the day of the riot, Karp said he watched in horror “as the disgraceful results of this attempted coup spilled into the hallowed halls of Congress.”
That made the firm a target when Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025. In March, Trump signed an executive order blacklisting Paul Weiss from federal buildings and government contracts, part of a series of such directives aimed at various law firms that the president viewed as adversaries.
“The shifts he was able to achieve in the firm were the precise things that created the vulnerabilities Trump was able to exploit,” said Scott Cummings, a legal ethics professor at UCLA School of Law.
Fearing the order would prompt a client exodus and destroy the 150-year-old firm, Karp sought a settlement with Trump.
He arrived at a White House meeting in the Oval Office that began with a prolonged discussion of golf. Sullivan & Cromwell co-chair Robert Giuffra, a Republican and Trump lawyer, was patched into the meeting by phone and later helped Karp negotiate a deal to rescind the executive order in exchange for $40 million of free legal work for causes the president supported.
Eight other firms subsequently reached similar deals with the administration to avoid Trump executive orders, pledging work worth nearly $1 billion combined. Four other law firms that Trump targeted with executive orders sued and won court rulings striking down the directives as unconstitutional.
A GENERATIONAL LEADER
Karp was a generational leader who molded Paul Weiss into a highly profitable and elite competitor in the private equity legal market, according to Kevin Burke, a professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law who himself once led a law firm.
“What ultimately makes this episode a cautionary tale is how even highly successful leadership can falter when institutional independence is compromised by proximity to executive power,” Burke said. “In a period marked by aggressive executive action and regulatory leverage, Paul Weiss’ decision to settle early and visibly engage with the administration created a perception of accommodation rather than resistance – one that stood in tension with the firm’s historic identity.”
Karp met Epstein through his representation of Black, the firm said. Records released by the Justice Department documented Karp thanking Epstein for a “once in a lifetime” dinner in 2015 with Woody Allen and later seeking Epstein’s assistance in securing a role for his son working on one of the director’s film productions.
Other emails showed Karp and Epstein discussing a woman demanding money from Black. Emails also showed them discussing Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement reached in 2008, when the financier pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in Florida, including soliciting an underage girl.
The emails indicated the two remained in contact as recently as early 2019, months before Epstein’s arrest on sex trafficking charges and subsequent suicide in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial.
(Reporting by Mike Spector in New York and David Thomas in Chicago; Additional reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario and Will Dunham)
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