Major legal donors fill Harris’ war chest for White House bid

Lawyers are opening their wallets for Vice President Kamala Harris, who has risen to the top of the Democratic nomination list to replace President Joe Biden.

About 100 law firm partners expressed 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 chairman of the 2020 Biden-Harris presidential campaign.

He will soon host a “big event” for Harris, the location and details of which have not yet been finalized, said Henes, who runs 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’m going to do everything in my power to help her.”

The lawyers are reprising a role they played in previous campaigns for one of their own. They donated more than $2 million to Harris’s 2018 Senate bid and gave the lawyer more than $3 million during her first presidential run.

Harris is increasingly becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee after Biden announced his withdrawal from the candidacy on July 21, while party leadership has been pouring in more support for her. She has already secured the delegates she needs to formally accept her nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago the week of August 19.

David Frederick, a partner at Kellogg Hansen, said he plans to support Harris and is willing to host fundraisers for her. Last month, he donated $250,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, which has since been renamed the Harris Victory Fund. “It is imperative to defeat the former president and the MAGA Republicans,” 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 has “long supported” Harris and is committed to supporting her if she becomes the official nominee. Kaplan donated more than $20,000 to the Democratic National Committee in March and another $25,000 to the former Biden Victory Fund, according to Federal Election Commission records.

“Especially when it comes to lawyers, every single lawyer – even conservative ones – has to be very concerned about what another Trump presidency would mean for the rule of law,” Kaplan said.

Reliable group

Lawyers have become a solid source of donations for Harris. During her first presidential run, she raised a total of more than $436,000 from associates at Paul Weiss, Kirkland and DLA Piper, her husband’s former law firm.

Now lawyers are lining up to back her second presidential bid. A group of major donors, including two lawyers, Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp and C Street Advisory Group co-founder Brian Mathis, are planning a conference call Wednesday with about 50 prominent Democratic supporters, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Mathis, a Harvard Law School graduate, raised money for former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns and helped Harris in her first run for the White House. Karp donated more than $26,000 to the Biden-Harris campaign last year, FEC records show.

“Kamala will be a formidable candidate, will run a tireless, well-funded and issues-based campaign, will inspire and energize key Democratic constituencies, and will be an outstanding president,” Karp said.

Brian Hennigan, founding partner of California litigation firm Hueston Hennigan, said: “There is a lot of support, a lot of interest and a lot of admiration for what she has accomplished as California’s attorney general.”

The firm hosted fundraisers for the former Biden-Harris campaign. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, attended the last event in early 2024. Hennigan donated $100,000 to the campaign’s victory fund in January.

Campaign lawyers

Harris proved to be a strong fundraiser in the first 24 hours of her campaign. The Democrats’ grassroots funding platform, ActBlue, has received over $100 million in donations since Biden announced the end of his re-election campaign. Major liberal donors such as George and Alex Soros, Evercore Inc. founder Roger Altman and Avenue Capital Group CEO Marc Lasry have already begun to support Harris.

The Biden campaign was renamed “Harris for President” and its leaders Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Julie Chavez Rodriguez remained in office.

The campaign’s internal team of about a dozen lawyers led by General Counsel J. Maury Riggan will also move to Harris, said a person familiar with the matter. Riggan is a former legal adviser at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr who previously served as White House counsel under Biden.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and his law firm Covington & Burling are helping Harris vet possible vice presidential candidates, 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. That same month, the campaign also paid $5,000 to Revelstoke, a small law firm founded two years ago by Danielle Friedman, a former Biden White House aide who previously worked at Perkins Coie.

— With reporting by Roy Strom