Professor Andrew Kent provided comment for an article published in The American Lawyer that analyzes a potential conflict of interest for the firm investigating Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with Leslie Wexner, the CEO of L Brands, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret.
But here are the niggling details: Davis Polk is not only the company’s outside corporate counsel, but the firm had a role in Wexner’s personal life. His wife Abigail was a former Davis Polk associate, and Dennis Hersch, the Wexners’ current business adviser, was a partner at the firm.
Do these ties put the firm too close to its subject, raising the specter of a conflict?
The legal answer is clearly no. “There is no conflict,” says New York University School of Law professor Stephen Gillers. “Indeed, Ms. Wexner could herself work on the matter as far as the conflict rules are concerned if L Brands agrees.”
Fordham Law School professor Andrew Kent concurs that is the law, as does Berit Berger, the executive director of Advancement of Public Integrity at Columbia Law School.
“Law firms are placed in this kind of situation all the time,” Berger explains. “Given the reputation of the firm, I don’t think it would do a sub-par job.”
Kent adds: “It is quite common, that people and businesses choose lawyers based on social ties and other personal factors, and lawyers can and often do render independent and professional service notwithstanding such ties.”
That might be the norm, but this case hardly seems the norm. Indeed, even if there’s no technical conflict, won’t there be doubts about how hard-hitting the firm will be when it comes to a valuable client, particularly one run by a strong leader whose personal and professional relationship with the notorious Epstein can only be described as strange?
