emptywheel

Yep. I guess perhaps he couldn't afford his own lawyers? Or it seemed like such a low level 'yep I will come and help with your enquiries' affair that it didn't seem likely that VdZ/Skadden interests would diverge?

He could afford his own lawyers. That is not even a question.

How much would you have to pay someone per hour to advise you on white collar issues in this sort of situation? I'd want someone who could advise on the specific interactions between English/US law, because obvs he has no formal link to the US as such

$600-$750 an hour at the lowest end of the scale. In DC, likely over $1,000. But you could get non-trial advisement for that.

So he'll be earning maybe £200-300k a year at 8yrs PQE. That's... not a lot of hours. Thinking of my university friends of the same seniority in similar roles - they're doing well, sure, but they're not 'spend 100k on legal fees without blinking' wealthy

I think for VdZ the big issue likely pertained to what "cost" he could afford wrt his pending promotion, which would have gone through in May. Maybe Skadden suggested he had to let them rep him, bc the risk to the firm was so great. But that cost him his job.

If they did that, I'd have some serious professional conduct questions for any of their English qualified staff who were involved

Putting pressure on an employee to give up their legal right to independent representation would... not be a good look. I'm also unclear WHY he went to the US to assist in the first place? They presumably can't compel a foreign national to fly in to be interviewed