Trump Lawyers' Financial Disclosures Reveal Big Law Salaries, Client Lists

(Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)

Want to know what Jones Day’s biggest names made last year? How about partners at other major firms?

The White House’s staff financial disclosures, released over the weekend, offer rare glimpses inside the wallets of some of Washington’s most well-known lawyers.

We’ve highlighted details from 12 individuals’ disclosures below. Within the disclosures, the attorneys list nearly all of the clients who’ve hired them for legal advice. Those are listed in part 4 of the disclosures, as filer’s sources of compensation.

Generally, the lawyers indicate that their 401(k) accounts and other firm accounts were returned to the firm or go dormant during their time in government. Some have more interesting arrangements, such as Jones Day offering vested partners a defined benefits plan—a pension—for life upon their retirements, and Cozen O’Connor offering partners what the firm calls “stock.”

Donald McGahn. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)

►Donald McGahn, White House counsel. McGahn, a former Jones Day election-law partner, reported a partnership compensation of $2.4 million. McGahn was general counsel to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. McGahn, whose career included a stint at Squire Patton Boggs, said in the report that he is still owed compensation and capital from the firm, which merged with Squire Sanders in 2014.

The 21 clients McGahn identified in his disclosure report included the National Rifle Association, Citizens United Foundation, Republican National Committee and Aaron Schock, the disgraced Illinois congressman who resigned in 2015 amid an investigation into alleged misuse of campaign and public funds.

In addition to his law firm pay, the Trump adviser—who sports long, hard rocker-esque locks—reported $4,900 in earnings from his side hustle playing the guitar in an ’80s cover band called Scott’s New Band. (He received that income from Friedman Entertainment, a music booking firm.)

McGahn’s full disclosure is here.

►Gregory Katsas, deputy counsel to the president. Katsas raked in nearly $3.9 million last year as a Jones Day partner, buoyed by a 10-client roster including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Chevron Corp., Procter & Gamble, the U.S. House of Representatives and United Parcel Service.

Katsas said he received the money in his Jones Day capital account when he left the firm for the administration, and also got a departure bonus that  was determined by the firm’s autocratic managing partner, Steve Brogan. It’s unclear in the filing how much of his millions from Jones Day last year were the buyouts.

Katsas’ filing also noted that Jones Day’s retirement benefits will leave him $28,000 a year until one month before he dies.

Profits per partner at the firm, which reports a single equity tier, were about $1 million last year, according to reporting by The American Lawyer.

Katsas’ full disclosure is here.

►William McGinley, cabinet secretary. McGinley earned about $1.5 million from his Jones Day partnership, according to his disclosure report, along with $2,500 from the George Washington University Law School, where he worked as a lecturer. He got money from his Jones Day capital account when he left the firm, but because McGinley had only been at Jones Day since 2014—he too came from Patton Boggs—he wasn’t yet eligible for the firm’s defined benefit retirement plan.

An election law expert, McGinley’s 38 clients last year included the presidential campaign of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who backed Trump’s candidacy after dropping out of the race and was reportedly considered as a running mate. McGinley, who went on to provide legal work for Trump’s campaign, also counted U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, and the Republican National Committee as clients.

McGinley’s full disclosure is here.

►Stefan Passantino, deputy counsel to the president. Passantino made almost $600,000 as a partner at Dentons last year, where his client roster listed 73 groups and companies, including his own firm and four that are undisclosed because of nonpublic investigations.

One client was Gingrich Productions, the multimedia production company of former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife, Callista. Gingrich, a prominent Trump supporter who was briefly discussed as a possible secretary of state, works as a senior adviser in Dentons’ public policy and regulation practice.

Another former client: Dr. Ben Carson, a candidate in the GOP presidential primary who rose to become Trump’s secretary of housing and urban development.

Passantino’s Dentons salary and bonus for the first three weeks of January 2017 was about $60,000. He explained: “This bonus amount was calculated by formula pursuant to firm policy and is solely based upon my performance in 2016 and not upon my future employment with the U.S. government.”

Passantino also said he expects the return of $254,000 of his capital contributions, without interest, from now until next April. He joined Dentons in 2015 when his previous firm, McKenna Long & Aldridge, merged with the global firm.

Dentons’ profits per partner numbers are no longer listed on the Am Law 100, since the firm now has a larger number of lawyers in China than in the United States. The law firm, often billed as the world’s largest, got into a public spat with the Am Law list two years ago, after The American Lawyer estimated its profits per equity partner figure to sit around $500,000–just under Passantino’s 2016 compensation amount. At the time, Dentons claimed its U.S.-based equity partners made above $1 million on average.

Passantino’s full disclosure is here.

Makan Delrahim. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi)

►Makan Delrahim, deputy White House counsel and nominee for the DOJ Antitrust Division. The former Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck partner reported a salary, bonus and partner profit distribution totaling nearly $800,000 in 2016. (Within that number, the shares he held in the partnership netted him $70,600 in Brownstein end-of-year profits from 2016.) His total comp during the year landed fairly close to the firm’s reported profits per equity partner figure for 2016, at $870,000, according to Am Law data.

Delrahim then made $41,000 in salary during the first three weeks of January this year, before he left the firm. He earned another $255,000 after selling off his equity stake in the law firm.

Notable clients included Anthem Inc., the health insurer that is fighting to salvage its proposed $54 billion acquisition of Cigna Corp., and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a mixed martial arts promotion company more widely known as UFC. In total, he listed 14 clients. Many are also disclosed to Congress as his and the firm’s lobbying clients, like Caesars Entertainment, the gaming company in bankruptcy, that paid Brownstein almost $2 million last year for lobbying services.

Delrahim said he is a passive investor in the film “Trash Fire.” Delrahim wrote in his disclosure: “As an investor, I will receive a fixed amount that reflects a repayment of my investment on a ‘first-in-first-out basis.’ I am also eligible to receive a pre-determined pro rata share of income once the movie hits its ‘break-even.’”

Delrahim’s full disclosure is here.

►John Eisenberg, National Security Council legal adviser and deputy counsel for national security affairs. Eisenberg, the NSC legal counsel who drew criticism for reportedly sharing intelligence files with House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, made $1 million last year for his work for 18 clients at Kirkland & Ellis. The firm’s profits per partner reached about $4 million last year, according to reporting by ALM.

The eight-year Kirkland partner identifies those payments in his disclosure as compensation and bonus—making no note of firm profit distributions he collected—though he does describe a defined contribution plan he has with the firm that received a $35,000 matched payment before he left. His clients included corporate giants such as BP America, Boeing and  General Motors and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Eisenberg’s full disclosure is here.

►James Schultz, senior associate White House counsel. Schultz, formerly the head of Cozen O’Connor’s government law and regulatory affairs practice, hauled in $717,000 last year—a figure close to the firm’s $770,000 profits per equity partner in 2016. His stakes in Cozen O’Connor’s profit sharing plan and law firm stock brought him such a small amount, their income amounts aren’t included in his disclosure. The firm bought back $100 of his firm stock when he left, he said.

At Cozen, he represented 36 clients including the ride-hailing startup Lyft Inc., along with investment advising company Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith; Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.; Temple University; the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; and Philadelphia’s National Public Radio station, WHYY.

Schultz’s full disclosure is here.

►James Burnham, senior associate counsel to the president. Burnham reported receiving a salary and bonus totaling $810,000 from Jones Day, where he’d worked as an associate since October 2010. At the firm, Burnham was on the legal team that represented former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell in his successful challenge to public-corruption charges. Among his other clients were R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Citizens United and the Republican National Committee.

Burnham’s full disclosure is here.

►Ann Donaldson, special counsel to the president and chief of staff to the White House counsel. As a third-year associate, Donaldson received a salary of $267,000 at Jones Day in the year leading up to her White House appointment. Along with McGahn, Donaldson worked on Schock’s defense team. She provided legal services to the Republican National Committee and to the failed re-election bid of former Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois.

Donaldson’s full disclosure is here.

►Schuyler Schouten, special assistant to the president and associate White House counsel. In her second year as an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell, Schouten made $342,693 representing several banks, including Bank of America, Bank of China, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase. Schouten also did work for Goldman Sachs, whose alumni have come to fill a number of roles in the Trump administration, and, separately from the firm, for Kissinger Associates Inc.

Schouten’s full disclosure is here.

Uttam Dhillon. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)

►Uttam Dhillon, special assistant to the president and senior associate White House counsel. Dhillon joined the Trump administration from another government position—chief oversight counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.

Earlier, he was a partner at the Dallas criminal defense firm Fitzpatrick Hagood Smith & Uhl from 2009 to January 2013. His financial disclosure notes that the firm could compensate him for past services it collects from clients in the future. He said he would consult with the White House Counsel’s Office prior to accepting those payments.

Dhillon’s full disclosure is here.

►Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president. Though not a Big Law affiliate herself, two firms make cameos in her financial disclosure. The Am Law firm Duane Morris in Trenton, New Jersey, hired her for more than $5,000 of consulting services.

And she disclosed that Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where her husband is a partner, paid him an undisclosed amount for partnership shares and $18,429 through the firm’s 401(k) investment. He has more than $1 million in capital at the elite New York firm. George Conway is reportedly Trump’s pick to lead the Civil Division at the Justice Department.

Conway’s full disclosure is here.