Chuck Cooper
Be careful what you wish for.
Alan Dershowitz publicly challenged the women who accused him of partaking in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal to sue him for defamation. Virginia Giuffre went ahead and filed suit, prompting Dershowitz to complain that they have no basis to sue him. The judge told him that his argument was ridiculous, but in the process granted Dershowitz’s disqualification motion arguing that David Boies and Boies Schiller should be disqualified as Giuffre’s counsel because Dershowitz intends to accuse the firm of a conspiracy to blackmail him and that therefore makes them fact witnesses.
The “stratergy” here was a gamble that without Boies on the case, Giuffre would struggle to find competent counsel to keep the claim going. It’s why this disqualification argument was such troubling precedent — if pro bono counsel can get kicked off a case so easily, it can close doors to justice for many litigants. That said, I noted at the time that Giuffre was likely to find another top-notch litigator willing to take on this specific matter and that’s turned out to be true.
Chuck Cooper of Cooper & Kirk filed pro hac papers yesterday looking to take over Virginia Giuffre’s case. This means Dershowitz now faces a seasoned Supreme Court litigator that The National Law Journal ranks as one of the 10 best civil litigators in Washington.
A former Reagan administration DOJ official, Cooper is well-known for representing conservative bigwigs like Jeff Sessions and John Bolton and taking up right-wing causes in federal court from representing the NRA to defending religion in schools in Lee v. Weisman. Cooper was even considered a frontrunner for the Solicitor General post that eventually went to Noel Francisco. In fact, it was Cooper who argued on behalf of California’s Proposition 8 in the landmark marriage equality case won by Boies and Gibson Dunn’s Ted Olson (Cooper would go on to plan his own daughter’s same-sex wedding, so he’s probably happy in retrospect to have lost that one).
For Dershowitz, the defamation case will roll on with another thorough and aggressive heavy hitter in that plaintiff’s counsel seat.
Earlier: Judge Mocks That Bonkers Republication Argument Dershowitz Made
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Dershowitz’s Motion To Disqualify Boies Schiller Immediately Dumped For Hilarious Reason
Harvard Law School’s Dershowitz Moves To Disqualify Boies Schiller In Sex Trafficking Case
Dershowitz Wanted A Trial Over Sex Trafficking Accusations — He’s Getting One
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After Publicly Demanding His Accusers Sue Him, Dershowitz Is Arguing That His Accusers Have No Basis To Sue Him