OPINION
Financial Times Writes About Former Chancery Court Chancellor Andre Bouchard’s Law Firm, Paul Weiss’ Jeffrey Epstein Ties
Dear Friends,
See the Financial Times story below about the corruptness and sordidness of Andre Bouchard and his cronies at his law firm, Paul Weiss – where he went after he resigned from the Chancery Court – and the ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
The Financial Times writes about the firm’s ties to “child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein” and “emails disclosed in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Epstein files.” The chairman of Bouchard’s firm is all over the Epstein files and serves as a dark and shameful cloud on our Chancery Court, state legislators and Delaware itself.
It’s no wonder companies are leaving our state. Remember, folks, Bouchard gave this law firm $1.7 million in fee awards and they gave him a job while he was on the case. The corruption runs deep and the ripples are being felt now more than ever.
See the Financial Times story below and please send your feedback on this, which is always welcome and appreciated.
Respectfully Yours,
JUDSON Bennett–Coastal Network
Financial Times story:
https://www.ft.com/content/067f194d-dd6d-4879-98f9-c7450ed380f4?syn-25a6b1a6=1
Paul Weiss, its star client and Epstein
The DoJ’s Epstein files reveal just how far law firm chair Brad Karp was willing to go for his most important client
Published Mar 26 2026
How Brad Karp’s star client brought him down
In early 2019, Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp seemed to be at the height of his powers.
He had transformed the law firm from a group best known for its elite litigation practice into one that was also a dealmaking powerhouse.
At the same time, he was able to publicly herald the law firm as an institution with a conscience. Accepting a coveted “attorney of the year” award in autumn 2018, he made a speech saying the firm’s lawyers were “committed to doing the right thing”.
He also praised earlier generations at Paul Weiss who “saw the law as a noble profession, not as a commercial enterprise”.
But behind the scenes, he was engaged in a relationship with the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that, based on emails disclosed in the US Department of Justice’s Epstein files, sounded chummy at times.
It ranged from arranging the surveillance of a woman linked to former Apollo Global Management chief executive Leon Black, to sharing comments about a DoJ lawyer being initialled as BJ.
Why? DD’s Kaye Wiggins has read through hundreds of entries in the Epstein files to piece together details of the relationship.
It centred on Black, whose private capital group was a star client for Paul Weiss, paying it a few hundred millions of dollars in fees in a year. The details are here, including some of the emails themselves.
Karp realised by the early 2010s that if Paul Weiss wanted to be in the top ranks of global law firms, it needed exposure to the private equity industry which was then at the beginning of a roughly decade-long boom.
Building a relationship with Apollo that enabled Paul Weiss to work on a wide range of matters for the private markets group, rather than just litigation, transformed the law firm. And staying close to Apollo meant dealing with Epstein, who had known Black since the 1990s.
Karp stepped down as chair of Paul Weiss after the Epstein files were released, but remains a partner there.
The firm’s new chair Scott Barshay, who advises on public M&A rather than private equity dealmaking, is less close to Apollo than others at the firm. He is less inclined than Karp to present the law firm as a force for good in the world.
And he’s not named in the Epstein files.