Happy New Year! Balch & Bingham Dumped

What a terrible way to start 2020.

Balch & Bingham, which tried to rehabilitate their Washington D.C. lobbying practice last November, saw two lobbying clients dump the firm in recent days.

According to a January 9th report in Politico.com, Northern Star Generation, one of two major clients left in D.C., terminated the firm.

The writing was on the wall. We reported in September that “Northern Star Generation has paid Balch only $30,000 [in 2019], compared to $160,000 [in 2018].”

We, the CDLU, had reached out to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), a joint owner of Northern Star Generation, calling on them to suspend Balch until the law firm ended their alleged unsavory, racist, and criminal conduct.

Balch, which had lost 17 of 18 major clients between 2015 and 2018, picked up Northern Generation as a new client in 2017.

On January 10th, Politico.com reported a smaller lobbying client, Transcendence, dumped Balch. Balch had been paid $40,000 by the company in 2018.

According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, Balch & Bingham appears to be only left with one lobbying client in Washington D.C. (Marathon Petroleum for those wondering).

Last year, Balch stupidly declared that they “owed no duty” (not even to tell the truth) to David Roberson, the former executive at Drummond Company.

Roberson is now facing 30 months in federal prison.

What business or business executive would want to risk their livelihood or freedom to a law firm which stubbornly refuses to accept responsibility or apologize for the alleged criminal and unsavory conduct of their once esteemed partners?

Happy 2020!