Servants of the Damned, by David Enrich
Review by Dave Gamrath
One-liner: In his book Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice, New York Times business investigations editor David Enrich tells the story of how the law firm Jones Day “wagered that representing Trump – and staffing his administration – would help transform Jones Day into a go-to firm for Republicans, mainstream and fringe alike,” and how this bet paid off handsomely.
Book Review:
Many helped to usher Donald Trump into the presidency, and then worked to keep him there after Trump lost the 2020 election. In New York Times business investigations editor David Enrich’s book Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice, Enrich tells the story of Trump’s legal help from the firm Jones Day, as well as the evolution of the legal industry over the past century. I found both enlightening.
Historically, law firms had a somewhat haughty view of themselves, and resisted becoming “commercialized.” Lawyers did well, but lawyering wasn’t considered a path to fabulous wealth. Firms tended to stay local, and were prohibited from advertising. Jones Day was a smaller law firm in Cleveland, OH, and was content to stay that way. Jones Day also was willing to turn down clients they deemed disreputable.
The 1970s brought on multiple changes to the legal industry. In pursuit of revenue, firms sought growth. The prohibition on legal advertising was overturned, and the first trade magazine for lawyers, American Lawyer, was published, inspiring significant changes in the norms and values of the legal profession. “The size of the legal industry exploded,” and the focus of firms turned to making money.
As with other firms, Jones Day embraced these changes. They started pressing lawyers to book more billable hours. They decided to shed their Midwest label, and began looking to expand through acquisition of other law firms. Jones Day soon became one of the largest law firms in the world. Internally, Jones Day embraced authoritarian leadership at the firm, with the top man (always a man) dictating policy and strategy. “Do what you were told, whether you like it or not” became Jones Days philosophy. Focus on revenue eroded ethics. From the 1980s onward, Jones Day’s behavior became more extreme. Jones Day’s “conduct was not pushing the envelope. It was burning up the envelope completely.”
Enrich writes that Jones Day was hardly alone with their egregious tactics. “The legal industry routinely traffics in borderline behavior designed to maximize profits and shield itself from unwanted scrutiny.” Elite lawyers and law firms are “geared toward helping clients sidestep regulations, control the media, whitewash their reputations, dodge taxes, and hide their money – tasks that don’t fit under even the most expansive definition of work to which clients are constitutionally or ethically entitled.” As a result, “the legal industry mints money,” and individual lawyers have become filthy rich. There is a vast power imbalance “heavily in favor of the world’s richest companies and individuals at the expense of everyone else.”
In the political sphere, Jones Day always leaned conservative. They supported Ronald Reagan, and a few Jones Day lawyers went to work for Reagan Administration. But Jones Day avoided direct political work. This ended in the 1980s when Jones Day bought a law firm in Washington DC, seeing significant revenue in lobbying. They hired ex-political officials and marketed the firm by boasting about the connections of its lawyers. As Jones Day pushed further into politics, a study found that “Jones Day was the most ideologically conservative” of America’s leading law firms.
Examples of Jones Day clients represent a litany of rightwing causes. Clients included the NRA and Smith & Wesson, and the Koch brothers. They defended Purdue Pharma in their OxyContin suits, Walmart for lack of control or oversight of selling opioids, Fox News in sexual harassment cases, Johnson and Johnson for causing cancer, and the Catholic church to avoid healthcare that provided contraception, as well as defense in child abuse cases. They became expert in creating shell companies to help clients avoid taxes. In the 1980s, Jones Day clients included over 200 Savings and Loans institutions, helping them lie, cheat, and misguide federal regulators, resulting in Jones Day being fined $51 million. Enrich writes that Jones Day’s “greatest client” was R.J. Reynolds (Big Tobacco), bringing Jones Day millions per month in revenue. Jones Day produced a manual for their defense of Big Tobacco, “which consisted in large part of blaming smokers for their own misfortune,” degrading science, and many other deplorable tactics. Enrich writes that Jones Day was very proud of this work.
In 2016, Jones Day took an even harder turn to the right when they took on Trump’s presidential campaign as a client, and after his election, embedded the firm within Trump’s administration. The mastermind of Jones Day’s “Trump strategy” was Don McGahn, who became Trump’s White House counsel. Enrich writes that McGhan has a “visceral hatred of the ‘administrative state,’” and saw Trump as an avenue to destroy it. McGhan’s key effort in the White House was to have Trump pack the courts with conservative judges, and in this effort, McGhan was wildly successful. Jones Day worked to seed Trump’s administration with its own staff, and dozens of Jones Day lawyers took positions in the White House, the Justice Department and other federal agencies. When lawyers left Jones Day for the Trump Administration, Jones Day gave them large “special payments,” some in the millions. Jones Day lawyers then set to work to crush government regulations, weaken consumer protection laws, and support McGahn’s goal of “neutering the federal bureaucracy and remaking the judiciary.” After the 2020 election, Jones Day’s efforts moved to helping with Trump’s “assault on the integrity of the American electoral system,” as they worked to help suppress votes.
After their work for Trump, Jones Day recruited these lawyers back to the firm, with nice pay raises. Jones Day used “its web of federal connections to trawl for clients.” The “revolving door between the private and public sectors” was on steroids at Jones Day, and involved a three-part strategy: 1) work to sue the government on behalf of large corporations, 2) then go to work for government in departments tasked with regulating those same corporations, 3) then go back to Jones Day with a pay raise. Enrich writes that Jones Day “had wagered that representing Trump – and staffing his administration – would help transform Jones Day into a go-to firm for Republicans, mainstream and fringe alike.” Their bet paid off, and continues to do so.
Servants of the Damned reads like a novel. Enrich’s excellent writing makes reading an aggravating story less painful. But it’s still aggravating.
Reviewer Opinion: Worth the read.
Reviewer Rating of Book: Thumb up.