On Sunday afternoon, Paul Weiss Chairman Brad Karp sent a 1,600-word email to the firm’s more than 900 lawyers explaining why it had bent to President Donald Trump’s demands. “This resolution was unambiguously in our clients’ best interests,” Karp wrote.
The remark didn’t sit well with one of those clients, Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of the crypto exchange Coinbase. Three hours after Karp hit send, Grewal posted this on LinkedIn: “A little friendly advice to my outside counsel. If you purport to take action with the administration in the interest of your clients, you might want to at least communicate with those clients first. Or at least this client.”