Washington Wrap is a weekly look at industry news and Big Law moves shaping the legal business in Washington, D.C. Send news tips and lateral moves to Ryan Lovelace at [email protected].

ZwillGen PLLC, a boutique law firm in Washington, D.C., counseling Internet companies, said it is handing out $100,000 in no-fee, no-interest loans to furloughed federal workers who are trying to make ends meet amid the partial federal government shutdown.

(Update: President Trump agreed Friday to a bipartisan deal to reopen the government and expressed support for back pay for furloughed federal workers. The continuing resolution Trump endorsed would expire on Feb. 15, 2018, and the partial government would resume at that time.)

The ZwillGen loans are capped at $750, require no credit checks, and are aimed at government workers in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area. Marc Zwillinger, the firm's founder and managing member, said it aims to distribute the loans within 12 to 24 hours of someone making a request at ZwillGen's website: myshutdownrelief.com. Eligible federal workers must make $70,000 or less annually and must not work at the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, or the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission due to firm conflicts regarding ongoing work.

Zwillinger said the $100,000 the firm intends to distribute to federal workers would have been shared across the firm's shareholders had the firm not launched the loan initiative.

“We were wrapping up our year-end last year, and we had a good year,” Zwillinger said, explaining the firm's motivation for providing the funds. “It was really hard to distribute them knowing everyone is struggling right now.”

Zwillinger noted that the ZwillGen loans might not necessarily be the best option for all furloughed workers seeking financial assistance, but said, “We just want to do our part.” He said the firm decided to offer the financial relief as loans instead of as gifts out of respect for the dignity of the furloughed federal workers, whom he said he did not think would want a handout. The firm did not share data on how many people have sought to utilize the program, but it revised upward the cap on individual loans from $500 and increased the maximum income threshold for eligible recipients since starting the initiative on Tuesday.

Zwillinger is a former federal employee himself, having served as a trial attorney in the DOJ's computer crime and intellectual property section in the late 1990s, in between stints at Kirkland & Ellis and Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. ZwillGen, with 25 attorneys, specializes in handling online legal issues such as data privacy, security, and online risks. Some of the firm's clients identified on its website include Electronic Arts, Yahoo!, Airbnb, and FanDuel.

The firm is encouraging its clients and other law firms to follow its lead in providing loan assistance, and in a statement announcing the $100,000 loan initiative, it also voiced its position on President Trump's role in the politics of the shutdown, expressing hope that “the president stops holding federal workers hostage as soon as possible.”

ZwillGen has also previously garnered attention through its addition of former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who has become a frequent target of Trump's criticism given her work on the federal investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia. Page joined the firm as counsel in May 2018, according to a September 2018 press release, and testified on the Hill about her work at the FBI last July. Trump has tweeted semi-regularly about Page in recent months, alternatively portraying her “lovely” and “incompetent & corrupt.”

Law Firm Moves, News & Notes

Federal lobbying revenues for 2018's fourth quarter this week showed Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld again leading the pack, with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck nipping at its heels. Akin Gump brought in $9.67 million last quarter, with just more than $37.6 million for the full year, while Brownstein's federal lobbying revenues jumped 8 percent year-over-year to more than $31.6 million, and $9 million last quarter.

Read which other firms rounded out 2018's top five federal lobbying firms here.

On the hiring front, Brownstein added Geoffrey Burr as a policy director in its government relations department in Washington, D.C.

Burr was most recently chief of staff to Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and previously special assistant to the secretary of the Department of Labor.

Akin Gump, meanwhile, added Casey Higgins as senior policy advisor and promoted Valerie Morse White to senior consultant.

Higgins was previously assistant to former House Speaker Paul Ryan for policy and trade counsel to Ryan.

Baker Hostetler added Eulonda Skyles as partner in its privacy and data protection team in D.C.

She previously was assistant general counsel for privacy and data security at Capital One, where she spent more than four years. She was also litigation counsel at Yahoo! and counsel at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.

Wilkie Farr & Gallagher lured Michael Gottlieb away from Boies Schiller Flexner.

Gottlieb, former associate White House counsel under President Barack Obama, will lead Wilkie's new crisis management practice.

Samantha Clark left the staff of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and joined Covington & Burling's public policy, CFIUS, and government contracts practices in Washington, D.C.

Clark held several positions on the armed services committee, including most recently as general counsel and deputy staff director.

Michael Songer joined White & Case as partner in Washington, D.C., this week after 15 years at Crowell & Moring.

Songer's clients are U.S. companies wrapped up in trade secrets litigation, and he formerly held leadership roles in the firm's litigation department and IP group.

Foley & Lardner added Tom Hoffmann and Darin Lowder as partners in the firm's business law department and finance practice group as partners in Washington, D.C.

Hoffmann and Lowder worked alongside one another at Ballard Spahr for more than a dozen years, and Hoffman was previously co-practice leader of Ballard Spahr's energy and project finance group.

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is moving to Ballard Partners and its Washington, D.C., office, where she will lead a corporate regulatory compliance practice.

Bondi is a close associate of President Trump, and Ballard Partners has recently added a D.C. outpost away from its Florida offices. Last week, Ballard added Raj Shah, former principal deputy press secretary in the Trump White House, who is launching Ballard Media Group.

Antitrust attorney Katherine Funk is joining Lewis Brisbois as partner and will open a new office in Washington, D.C., for the firm.

She was most recently founder of the boutique antitrust firm Advokat PLLC in D.C., and was previously partner at Crowell & Moring and at Baker & McKenzie.