Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

A group of White House lawyers who previously worked at Kirkland & Ellis have received blanket waivers allowing them to participate in matters involving their former firm, according to ethics disclosures.

The latest recipient of such a waiver is Patrick Philbin, a former Kirkland & Ellis partner whom White House counsel Pat Cipollone brought on as a deputy. The waiver is undated but was made available on the White House website Jan. 24. Three other former Kirkland & Ellis lawyers—Jennifer Dickey, a former associate, along with former partners John Eisenberg and Claire Murray—previously received similar waivers.

Dickey and Eisenberg are free to “participate in communications and meetings pertaining to litigation involving the United States of America in which one or more parties is represented by Kirkland & Ellis LLP,” the waivers say, so long as the attorneys haven't previously represented a party in the matter or been personally and substantially involved in it during their time at the firm.

Murray, a past clerk for Justice Samuel Alito, had previously received a waiver to participate in communications and meetings where Kirkland represents parties in matters “affecting public policy issues which are important to the priorities of the administration.”

It is not entirely clear how the waivers will come into play for the former Kirkland & Ellis lawyers. The Justice Department, not the White House counsel's office, litigates cases on behalf of the federal government. White House attorneys, however, are consulted on issues where the Trump White House might have a stake in the matter.

The White House counsel's office also traditionally does not insert itself into Justice Department investigations, so the former Kirkland & Ellis lawyers would unlikely have any official occasion to discuss ongoing probes with defense lawyers at the firm.

The waivers could come into play in one area: the transgender military ban. The firm represents a set of plaintiffs who sued the Trump administration over its first attempt to prohibit open service by transgender troops. The case, Karnoski v. Trump, is still being fought in federal courts.

The White House did not return a request for comment.

Kirkland & Ellis has emerged as one of the top law firms, alongside Jones Day, feeding legal talent into the Trump administration. Following the forced resignation of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Trump tapped William Barr, a Kirkland lawyer who'd headed the Justice Department under George H.W. Bush's administration, to again lead the agency. Former Kirkland & Ellis partner Brian Benczkowski was confirmed in July to run the DOJ's criminal division. Another former partner at the firm, Robert Khuzami, signed on to serve as deputy U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York—a role that has put him in charge of the prosecution of Trump's former personal attorney and self-described fixer, Michael Cohen.

The waivers for the White House lawyers resemble a blanket ethics waiver issued in early 2017 to six former Jones Day lawyers in the White House counsel's office. Then-White House counsel Donald McGahn, a former partner at the firm, was among the recipients.

While stacked with prominent lawyers from Republican administrations—including Mark Filip, a former deputy attorney general under the George W. Bush administration who now leads the firm's government defense practice—Kirkland & Ellis can point to several prominent Democrats within its ranks. Among the firm's partners is Neil Eggleston, who served as President Barack Obama's White House counsel from 2014 through the end of the administration. A litigation partner, Susan Davies, served as deputy White House counsel during the Obama administration. Erica Williams, a partner in the firm's regulatory and investigations group, served as a special assistant and associate counsel to Obama.

“More Kirkland lawyers served in the Obama White House Counsel's office than the Trump White House Counsel's office, at least initially,” Filip said. “More recently, more Kirkland lawyers have joined the Trump Counsel's office. And we're grateful to all of them for their public service.”

“We try hard to be bipartisan, and to have strong lawyers who variously served in both Republican and Democratic positions. We think that it makes us better able to represent our clients,” Filip said.

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