>>14604316
Not always placid at Perkins Coie
Many Big Law firms are wary of being tagged with a political affiliation for fear of alienating deep-pocketed corporate clients.
While a few big firms — such as the Republican-focused Jones Day and Wiley Rein — have election-law practices, most top firms in the field are smaller shops such as the left-leaning Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock and the right-leaning Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky.
"There are very few candidate-focused practices like that left in big firms," said Dan Binstock, a partner at the legal-recruiting shop Garrison & Sisson.
Elias' decision to leave Perkins Coie is in line with that broader trend. He and Perkins Coie jointly announced their schism Sunday.
Both parties described it as a mutual parting and said they intended to "work together on key matters — including litigation aimed at protecting the right to vote for all Americans."
But Elias' relationship with Perkins Coie wasn't always placid, two people familiar with the firm told Insider.
Elias' comments about Miller, his former colleague, initially ruffled feathers. Then, in June, Elias tweeted that the automaker Toyota, a Perkins Coie client, had undermined democracy by contributing to politicians who had opposed the certification of the 2020 presidential election result.
—Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) June 28, 2021
Elias said Perkins Coie, which will maintain its own post-Elias political-activities practice, was "great about fostering a Democratic Party set of clients, and allowing us to do that work." He said his decision to leave arose out of a "desire individually, frankly, to be more outspoken and also be affiliated with only clients that are only part of this mission."
"There are responsibilities you have as a partner at a large law firm to make sure that what you are saying is going to reflect the values of the firm," Elias added. "And Perkins is a very progressive law firm. This was not a huge challenge."
He added: "So it's not that the firm placed restrictions on me that were difficult."
With the Elias Law Group, however, he is planning to go on offense against Republicans as they enact restrictive voting laws and draw new congressional districts in coming months.
'Committed to fighting back'
In election-law circles, Elias' business savvy is widely admired. Perkins Coie represented no fewer than seven candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
Michael Toner, a former Federal Election Commission chairman who's now Wiley Rein's election-law and government-ethics chairman, said he viewed Elias as an "outstanding practitioner."
Perkins Coie made almost $47 million in legal fees off political clients during 2020, including Democratic candidates, party committees, political action committees, and super PACs, an Insider analysis of Federal Election Commission political-committee spending data indicates.
The firm probably made millions more from clients that don't publicly report their spending, according to lawyers in the field.
One such client was George Soros, who put $5 million in a trust to fund Elias' work, The Washington Post reported in 2016.
In an email to Insider, Michael Vachon, a Soros spokesman, called Elias "one of the most effective advocates for voting rights," saying, "We have long supported his litigation efforts and will continue to do so."
While Elias can't charge clients the $2,000-an-hour rates of top mergers-and-acquisitions lawyers or bet-the-company litigators such as former Attorney General Eric Holder, he doesn't work cheap.
His hourly rate soared from $735 in 2015 to $1,190 in 2019, according to court filings — far more than what his election-law competitors charge. It's probably higher now, but Elias and a Perkins Coie spokesman didn't respond to questions about it. (It's common, however, for lawyers to discount their standard rates to secure big engagements.)
Attorney Marc Elias walks down the steps of the Supreme Court surrounded by other attorneys
Elias, center, was one of several lawyers who appeared in the case of Wittman v. Personhuballah, in 2016. J. Scott Applewhite/AP