Kirkland & Ellis lawyers had no knowledge that former Houston Bankruptcy Judge David Jones was having a secret romantic affair with a former partner at a Texas law firm that served as its co-counsel in dozens of corporate restructurings and that Kirkland cannot be held accountable for the ethical lapses of the judge in those cases, according to court documents filed Friday. Lawyers for Kirkland, which include David Beck, argue that the Chicago-founded law firm should be dismissed from a federal racketeering lawsuit that accuses Kirkland and its co-counsel at Dallas-based Jackson Walker of exploiting the relationship between Judge Jones and former Jackson Walker partner Elizabeth Freeman. Jackson Walker has hired Rusty Hardin and Judge Jones is being represented by McKool Smith.

Lawyers for Jackson Walker contend that the U.S. Justice Department “fails to plead any plausible allegations” in its effort to claw-back legal fees paid to the firm for its work on 26 different corporate bankruptcies and to have sanctions levied against the firm.

The Dallas-based corporate law firm argues that there is no evidence that then-U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones’ intimate relationship with then-Jackson Walker partner Elizabeth Freeman influenced any of his decisions and that Jackson Walker should not be penalized because it only learned about the relationship after many of the cases raised by the U.S. trustee had been concluded.

Jackson Walker violated lawyer disciplinary and federal bankruptcy disclosure rules when it failed to disclose the romantic relationship between one of its lawyers and the judge in several high-profile bankruptcies, and the firm should be sanctioned and required to return more than $11 million it was paid in those cases, according to the U.S. trustee for the Southern District of Texas.

When Jackson Walker leaders confronted its partner, Elizabeth Freeman, in 2021 and 2022 about reports that she was in a romantic relationship with then Chief Bankruptcy Judge David Jones, Freeman assured them that “there was no ongoing intimate relationship with Judge Jones,” according to a court document filed Monday afternoon by lawyers for Jackson Walker.

“Jackson Walker did not know of any ongoing intimate relationship between Ms. Freeman and Judge Jones until 2022 when it learned, quite by accident, that Ms. Freeman’s denial was possibly false or at least no longer true,” the firm states in a five-page filing titled “Preliminary Response of Jackson Walker to Recent Filings by the Office of the United States Trustee.”