Legal News

Report: Lawyers Emptying Pockets for Candidates

By Ashby Jones

We would be remiss — and feel woefully left out — if we didn’t figure out a way to dip our toes into the Pennsylvania primaries today.

So here, courtesy of the Los Angeles Daily Journal (link not available), is a little something we didn’t know: that lawyers are in fact the biggest contributors by profession to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s campaigns — and the second-biggest to presumptive Republican nominee John McCain’s campaign.

According to the story out today, (link not available), of the $193 million Obama had raised by the end of February, lawyers were responsible for $13.7 million. Clinton had raised $169 million by the end of February, $14.8 million of which had come from lawyers.

In terms of law firms nationwide, Obama’s biggest donors were from Sidley Austin (almost $272,000); Skadden, Arps (almost $249,000); and Jones Day ($212,000). Lawyers at DLA Piper are her single-biggest source of cash ($495,000), while contributions from attorneys at Skadden ($218,485) also rank in her Top 10 donors by employer.

So how to explain why some firms, like DLA Piper, which has given almost $400,000 less to Obama than Clinton, “clearly favor one candidate over the other?” According to the story, such scenarios are often explained by the presence of a particularly active political player at the firm. In DLA Piper’s case: “that would be Jim Blanchard, a former Democratic governor of Michigan and friend of the Clintons.”

We know of some law-firm lawyers out there who are stumping hard for their candidates. In a blog post, the author of the Daily Journal piece, Lawrence Hurley, asks whether associates feel pressure to give to a certain candidate. It’s a provocative question. Anyone have any tales to tell?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).