Walz to Headline Dallas Fundraiser With Big Law Co-Hosts (1)

A pair of Big Law partners in Texas is looking to boost Kamala Harris’ White House bid in a fundraising event with her running mate.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is set to attend the Monday event in Dallas. Its hosts include Jill Louis, a longtime Harris backer and managing partner of Perkins Coie’s Dallas office, and Paul Coggins, co-chair of Locke Lord’s white collar criminal defense and internal investigations practice group. Regina Montoya, a former White House official under the Clinton administration and a co-chair of the Lawyers for Harris committee, is also leading the fundraiser.

“It’s always been something that’s ingrained in our system and it’s saving democracy by raising money to make sure the right people get elected,” said Montoya, a lawyer who is married to Coggins. “I have no doubt that we’re going to leave this room more fired up again to do whatever we can.”

Montoya says more than half of her invited attendees are attorneys. Some prominent names at major firms have joined the rush to flood Harris’ campaign coffers since the start of her truncated presidential bid.

Tickets for the event range from $1,000 to $100,000, according to an invitation viewed by Bloomberg Law. The fundraiser comes a day before Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, is scheduled to debate her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.

Louis is a Dallas corporate lawyer who attended Howard University with Harris. Both were members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

“As we have grown in our professional lives, what we can do and what we put ourselves out there to do has just become greater,” Louis said. “You are seeing a coming of age of this generation of understanding that you’ve got to be involved at a lot of levels.”

Perkins Coie was once a top legal adviser to the Democratic National Committee. It’s largely dialed back its work for the committee as the DNC pivoted to other firms, like Covington & Burling and WilmerHale.

Sally Yates, a King & Spalding partner and former Democratic acting attorney general, hosted multiple fundraisers in California this week. A group including Sullivan & Cromwell senior chairman Rodge Cohen last month hosted a lunch fundraiser in New York, which featured Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

Coggins, who worked on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, declined to specify a fundraising goal for the Dallas event.

“What we tell people we reach out to is get your ticket early, because all the levels are going to be sold out so you don’t want to wait” Coggins said. “That’s true not just here, that’s true across the country.”