Christopher Clark, a former federal prosecutor with high-profile clients like Mark Cuban and Elon Musk, and who currently represents President Joe Biden's son Hunter in a U.S. tax investigation, has left the international law firm Latham & Watkins. He has joined forces with Patrick Smith, his former mentor from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, to form a new litigation-focused firm called Clark Smith Villazor based in New York. Clark expressed his excitement about the move, saying that their team is "incredibly dangerous and frightening" for opponents to face off against.
Clark stated that he chose to leave his partnership at Latham & Watkins, which is one of the largest and most profitable law firms in the United States, due to conflicts that hindered his ability to handle cases on behalf of his hedge fund clients and other clients. He added that these issues would not arise at his new firm, Clark Smith Villazor. Despite leaving Latham & Watkins, Clark will still lead a team of lawyers from the firm who are representing Hunter Biden in his ongoing U.S. tax investigation. There has been no response yet from Latham & Watkins regarding this matter. In December 2020, Biden released a statement asserting that his tax affairs were being investigated by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware, but that he had acted legally and properly. According to Clark, the investigation is still ongoing. Smith Villazor was initially established in 2016 by Patrick Smith and Rodney Villazor, both of whom were former partners at DLA Piper, another international law firm.
Elon Musk also hired Clark when he was initially charged with securities fraud by the SEC for tweeting in 2018 about taking Tesla Inc private. Musk settled with the SEC, paying a $20 million fine and stepping down as Tesla's chairman for three years. However, Clark is not currently representing Musk.
