Attorneys are opening their wallets for Vice President Kamala Harris, who has risen to the top of the Democratic ticket to replace President Joe Biden.
Roughly 100 law firm partners reached out to express interest in fundraising for Harris the day after Biden dropped out of the race, said Jon Henes, a former Kirkland & Ellis partner who was national finance chair for the Biden-Harris 2020 presidential campaign.
He will soon host a “major event” for Harris with the location and details yet to be finalized, said Henes, who runs the bankruptcy communications consultancy C Street Advisory Group. “It’s going to be a four-month sprint to the finish line,” Henes said in an interview. “I will do anything in my power to help her.”
The lawyers are embracing a role they played in past campaigns for one of their own. They donated more than $2 million to Harris’ 2018 Senate bid and gave the attorney more than $3 million during her first presidential run.
Harris is emerging as the the Democratic Party’s nominee following Biden’s July 21 letter announcing his departure from the ticket, as endorsements for her poured in from party leaders. She has already secured the delegates needed to formally accept the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago the week of Aug. 19.
Kellogg Hansen partner David Frederick said he plans to donate to Harris and is open to holding fundraisers for her. Last month he gave $250,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, now renamed the Harris Victory Fund. “Defeating the former president and the MAGA Republicans is imperative,” Frederick said in an email.
Roberta Kaplan, the veteran trial lawyer who represented New York writer E. Jean Carroll in her landmark lawsuits against President Donald Trump, said she “long supported” Harris and is committed to backing her assuming she becomes the official nominee. Kaplan gave the Democratic National Committee more than $20,000 and the former Biden Victory Fund another $25,000 in March, according to Federal Election Commission records.
“When it comes to lawyers in particular, every single lawyer—even conservative ones—needs to be very concerned about what another Trump presidency would do to the rule of law,” Kaplan said.
Dependable Group
Attorneys have been a solid fundraising bloc for Harris. During her first presidential run she collectively raised more than $436,000 from employees at Paul Weiss, Kirkland and DLA Piper, which is her husband’s former firm.
Now, the lawyers are lining up to back her second presidential run. A group of big donors that includes two attorneys, Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp and C Street Advisory Group co-founder Brian Mathis, plan to hold an organizational call Wednesday with around 50 prominent Democratic supporters, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Mathis, a Harvard Law School graduate, raised funds for former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns and helped Harris during her first White House bid. Karp gave the Biden-Harris campaign more than $26,000 last year, FEC records show.
“Kamala will be a formidable nominee, run a relentless, well-funded, issues-based campaign, inspire and activate key constituencies of the Democratic coalition and make a superb president,” Karp said.
Brian Hennigan, a founding partner at California litigation boutique Hueston Hennigan, said, “There’s a lot of support, a lot of interest, and a lot of admiration for what she’s done as California’s attorney general.”
The firm held fundraising events for the former Biden-Harris campaign. Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff attended the most recent event in early 2024. Hennigan gave the campaign’s victory fund $100,000 in January.
Campaign Lawyers
Harris proved to be a strong fundraiser in the first 24 hours of her campaign. Democrats’ grassroots funding platform ActBlue received over $100 million in donations since Biden announced the end of his reelection bid. Liberal mega-donors including George and Alex Soros, Evercore Inc. founder Roger Altman, and Avenue Capital Group chief executive Marc Lasry have already started backing Harris.
The Biden campaign was renamed “Harris for President,” and its leaders, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Julie Chavez Rodriguez, kept in place.
The campaign’s in-house team of roughly a dozen lawyers led by general counsel J. Maury Riggan will also transition to Harris, said a person familiar with the matter. Riggan is a former Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr counsel who previously served as a White House counsel under Biden.
Former US Attorney General Eric Holder and his firm, Covington & Burling, are helping Harris vet possible running mates, Bloomberg Law reported Monday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Covington received $373,500 in legal fees from the Biden campaign in June, according to FEC filings. The campaign also paid $5,000 that same month to Revelstoke, a small firm formed two years ago by Danielle Friedman, a former Biden White House staffer who once worked at Perkins Coie.
— With reporting by Roy Strom
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