There’s a tendency by those outside the legal profession to conflate lawyers with their clients, to assume that if you represented someone, you must personally be aligned with their interests or find them sympathetic.
The latest target is Kirkland & Ellis white-collar defense partner Brian Benczkowski, a DOJ and Capitol Hill veteran nominated to head the Justice Department’s criminal division. He spent much of his confirmation hearing on Tuesday explaining work that he did on behalf of a Russian bank reportedly investigated for potential connections between its computer servers and the Trump Organization.
