Jeff Clark informed the masses that he’s starting up a new law firm. Like any firm boasting the level of seriousness Jeff Clark brings, the announcement and a call for applications went up on X, America’s premier source for racial slurs. Though if recruiting lawyers on X is good enough for the Department of Justice, it’s more than sufficient for a new right-wing vanity project. It’s not easy finding good help these days… just ask the FBI how hard it is to hitch your wagon to the right horse.
Of course, Clark’s own law license presents some pesky obstacles to this new endeavor. The D.C. Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel opened a probe into Clark’s work in 2022 predicated upon a complaint received from the Senate Judiciary Committee. A hearing committee found in 2024 that Clark violated the rule against dishonesty. In July 2025, the Board recommended disbarment, arguing that nothing short of it would sufficiently address the misconduct. That recommendation is still sitting in front of the D.C. Court of Appeals. In the meantime, the DOJ has swooped in to challenge the local bar’s authority to regulate the profession.
In any event, most new law firms aren’t fronted by guys on the precipice of disbarment.
Clark achieved conservative fame when he tried to finagle himself into the Acting Attorney General job in the waning days of the first Trump administration. The then-Assistant Attorney General responsible for environmental cases had established himself as the administration lawyer willing to entertain using the DOJ to disrupt the lawful transition of power. In the Oval Office on January 3, 2021, with Clark angling to be installed as Acting Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue told him to go back to his office and they’d call him when there’s an oil spill — objectively a hilarious way to be told you can’t have the job you want.
Now he’s going to start a new firm:
So it will “combat government weaponization of all types, but especially abuses of congressional and state legislative branch oversight,” OK, combat that… “perversion of bar discipline processes,” fine… that seems like something you’d fight, “and securing the dismissal of bogus criminal indictments.” Did he forget that this sentence was about combating things? Just write “bogus criminal indictments” then. Mistakes happen, but for a law firm launch announcement, one would expect a little more proofreading.
Maybe that’s why he needs to hire people so quickly. On the other hand, AI is freakishly obsessed with parallelism, so at least we know he didn’t outsource this to a bot. No, this was a grammatical cock up all his own.
For what it’s worth, the Oversight Project job listing page notes that candidates for this position must hold an “Active bar admission in good standing.” Insert sad trombone sound effect here. The listing also includes this recruitment poster — because, again, serious legal institutions always search for attorney talent with… whatever the hell this is:
What was the prompt for the cursed AI generator that threw this together? “Give us a lawyer ad, but make it Homelander with ski goggles while holding a glowing lunchbox — but definitely not by the handle — and also explosions.”
The Oversight Project is a Heritage Foundation spin-off filing amicus briefs in various right-wing culture war cases like opposing the consent decree following the police slaying of Breonna Taylor or fighting Blue state redistricting while remaining curiously silent about Red state maps. Clark serves as the vice president of litigation at the Oversight Project. It’s not exactly clear what separates this “new law firm” from the Oversight Project’s existing litigation work.
So, if you’re a lawyer at any stage of your career, who is patriotically and publicly spirited and who is fed up with Lawfare, Barfare, Weaponization, and efforts to turn The Law into mechanized Marxism on the move…
I’m guessing “mechanized Marxism on the move” sounded like poetry in his head.
But “Barfare” — a new term — is clearly becoming the boogeyman in the MAGA legal circles. Trump aligned lawyers can lie to tribunals and violate court orders and launch attacks on federal judges, knowing that the administration stands ready to pardon them — as Clark did, when Trump pardoned him. And there’s always a legal job available for a former administration lawyer who can promise to bring in enough money. The only avenue of accountability that Trump and the Federalist Society professional network can’t control is the law licensing process. That’s why the most important task for lawyers seeking to protect the public and restore the integrity of the profession is the active investigation and disbarment of government lawyers breaching ethical rules.
Some government lawyers have figured this out and started heading for the door.
It’s why the DOJ launched an aggressive effort to rewrite the rules to shield the law licenses of government lawyers from scrutiny and subsequently interjected itself into Clark’s case. The government argues that administration lawyers can’t be worried that their actions might carry ethical consequences after they leave office, even though hundreds of former government lawyers have gone on record that they managed to do their jobs just fine without lying to courts or attempting coups. That “Barfare” is a hot topic of conversation confirms that Trump aligned lawyers understand professional responsibility as the final line of defense the legal community has against the administration. First the government threw itself into the fight, and now conservatives are building up outside counsel resources to fight those battles.
And, hey, the firm’s founder is already the textbook client.
Earlier: DOJ Sues D.C. Bar For Holding Trump Lawyers To Ethical Rules
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
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