Insurance litigator Bradley Dlatt was fired by law firm Perkins Coie and has been erased its website after he posted on Facebook,
“Charlie Kirk got famous as one of America’s leading spreaders of hatred, misinformation and intolerance.The current political moment—where an extremist Supreme Court and feckless Republican Congress are enabling a Republican president to become a tyrant and building him a modern-day Gestapo for assaulting black and brown folks—is a result of Charlie Kirk’s ‘contributions’ to American media and politics. Hell, Kirk would likely be flattered by the underlying claim. His Turning Point USA began as a sort of Misbehaved Young Republicans and eventually overshadowed traditional right-wing organizations like CPAC in dictating the shape of American conservatism. Not to diminish Donald Trump’s media instincts, but when polls suggest young men turning more conservative helped get Trump to this point, that’s all Kirk. And he can take credit for all that flows from that, including the current Supreme Court making a straightfaced proclamation that forgiving student debt is executive tyranny and then deciding that sending people to South Sudan without due process is just “practicing executive authority the right way.” It’s not “celebrating” a murder just because you decline to whitewash Kirk’s legacy by acting like he “was practicing politics the right way” as Ezra Klein belched out onto the pages of the New York Times. Klein apparently believes saying that the guy who tried to murder Paul Pelosi with a hammer should be bailed out by some “patriot” or responding to the murder of George Floyd by calling him a “scumbag” is “the right way.” It’s a stunning display of pathological centrism brain: a compulsion to champion an angle that almost no one in the real world shares and then preen as though being an outlier is a sign of genius. Because while liberals didn’t think Kirk practiced politics the right way… neither did conservatives! If they’re being honest with themselves, the highest compliment conservatives give Kirk is that he broke politics. He saw the dusty, genteel norms of the post-War political divide and tossed them aside to build a following. He took Rush Limbaugh’s model and pushed it beyond its limits. That said, no one in this country should be murdered for their political speech. Wishing comfort to his wife and children in this difficult time. “
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:
Was it fair and responsible for the law firm to fire him?
The firm certainly didn’t have to fire him. There is always the question of whether he was on thin ice anyway, and the post was only the final straw, or perhaps seen as a good excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway.
My take: the characterization of Kirk as a purveyor of hatred would not give me a lot of confidence in the lawyer’s research skills, ability to filter out bias, or powers of objective analysis. His Trump-Derangement symptoms would also give a lot of potential Perkins Coie clients pause too. Firing Dlatt was a sound business decision.
(And George Floyd was a scumbag. This guy objects to calling a lifetime hood a “scumbag.” but publishes a screed like that against Charlie Kirk? Yeah, that’s someone whose legal judgment I’m going to rely on…)
Ethics Alarms 
Ironic that he was fired from a firm that’s a proven appendage of the Democratic Party, TDS and all of their related ills. But perhaps there are some bridges even that wretched outfit won’t cross.
The firing was the right thing to do, IMO.
He writes that entire rant and ends it with an obligatory message of comfort for Kirk’s family?
When I was very little, I used to sneak out of bed with my eyes covered because I thought that, if I couldn’t see anything, my parents couldn’t see me.
Dlatt thought he was covering his hate with a canned statement of sympathy at the end. People saw who he was anyway.
That line nearly made me snarl. Certainly got my hackles up.
Don’t be telling me what I thought (and think) of Charlie Kirk. You wouldn’t know a conservative thought if it jumped up and bit you.
For that alone, I could rate this as ethical. It also proves that the firm is not totally stupid, despite their best efforts.
If someone had said that sort of thing after Martin Luther King, Jr. or Robert Kennedy were assassinated, do we think it would have been met with just a nod and a shrug? Be real.
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On a related note, I had my sister read the House resolution memorializing Charlie Kirk, and asked what she thought. She is a hard core Democrat — but nonetheless a real person. She said, as I thought she would, that she thought it was fine.
My followup question was why did she think our congresswoman voted against it. She didn’t know, but she’s going to ask her next time she sees the congresswoman. She also said she wished it could have been a coming together moment — but guessed that some are just totally consumed with partisanship that they couldn’t. Unfortunately that is true for some on the right as well (MTG I am looking down at you).
My sister’s a good person (even if we profoundly disagree). She’s also a child of the 60s and Vietnam, I think, and just old enough to have been devastated by the JFK assassination.
I agree wtih Ted Frank’s take:
https://x.com/tedfrank/status/1966579896206983653
jvb
There are some telling responses in that thread. I think there is a fundamental difference between the Left and the Right on what constitutes “spewing hatred.” For the Left, it seems they label “hatred” as disagreeing with its stance on gay/lesbian/transgender issues, illegal immigration, the number of genders that exist, pronouns, religion in general (and Christianity in particular), political parties in general (and Republicans in particular), and climate. There might be a few others, but those are the main ones.
If you have an opinion that’s different on those things – and you dare speak that opinion out loud – you are speaking “hatred.” You’re a “fascist”…a “Nazi”…you’re a “promoter of violence”…and as we saw with Charlie Kirk, your death – even death via a bullet through the throat – will be celebrated.
Agreed. That’s the basis of the “words are violence: argument. If the Left is all about non-violence, then the Left is going to be against words and ideas it declares are hate-speech or violent speech.
jvb
Here we go again. The summation of the piece is:
Charlie Kirk was a hater, a Nazi, and a fascist.
President Trump is a hater, a Nazi, and a fascist.
ICE is the Nazi Gestapo.
Blacks are being assaulted.
Deporting illegals is immoral.
Cherry-picking Kirk’s statements regarding Paul Pelosi.
St. George of Floyd.
Hey Erika, sorry your Nazi, fascist, hating husband got killed.
Yeah, that feels like a Hallmark sympathy card…
I wouldn’t trust my case or my transaction to a lawyer who vigorously spouts Dem talking points. Where’s the critical thinking capability in this guy’s brain? But I’ve heard the same from a couple of lawyers who are smarter and more accomplished in the law than I ever was. Trump Derangement is real. Mystifying, but real.
I wouldn’t want to have to ask, “What’s wrong with this guy?” of someone I’d be paying a thousand or so dollars an hour.
Honestly, just seems to speak for itself that this guy is too bothered to be fair and reasonable with a command of his bias. He’s too entrenched to understand what his bias is and he’s allowing it to alienate potential clients.
My attorney husband blogs at The American Catholic and Almost Chosen People, generally from a conservative perspective, but he never talks politics with his clients. Bringing politics up during a client meeting would only distract from the client’s legal situation. Clients usually don’t know my husband’s political views unless they’ve run across his blog posts, and he doesn’t want to know anything about their political views.
This is the law firm that was a major force behind the Steele dossier. Given what they’ve done, this seems mild and fairly in sync with their past actions.
Bingo. He’ll probably get picked up by Marc Elias’s firm! At least Perkins Coie fired Elias.