By Noreen Marcus, FloridaBulldog.org
August was a big month for Boca Raton lawyer Larry Klayman. His star client and flame-throwing ally Laura Loomer gave a deposition in her slander case against talk show host Bill Maher that surely made the libs’ heads explode.
Also that month, Klayman anticipated the indictments of President Trump’s “deep state” foes in an interview with USAWatchdog.com.
“They will first go for the low-hanging fruit before they get to Hillary Clinton and other higher ups,” he said. “This time it’s different, and this time I believe there will be some accountability.” (The indictments started in September with former FBI director James Comey.)
Fast forward to November and Klayman is under orders to take a long break from practicing law in Florida.
On Nov. 6 the Florida Supreme Court suspended his license for two years because the D.C. Bar had sanctioned him for ethics violations. Klayman, who was recently suspended in D.C., has three weeks to close his Florida practice.
The Supreme Court’s message to Florida lawyers is clear: No matter who they are, if they have ethics troubles somewhere else, they can’t escape the consequences in Florida.
“If I’m admitted in some other state and in Florida and I do something wrong in that other state, I know I’ll be disciplined in Florida, too,” said a lawyer who has opposed Klayman, speaking anonymously to avoid retaliation.
Klayman’s double discipline “is not unique, and I think as a lawyer you have to be cognizant of that,” said Jeffrey Swartz, who reviewed the Nov. 6 ruling at Florida Bulldog’s request. Swartz is an emeritus professor at Cooley Law School in Tampa.
“I know little of Mr. Klayman personally, only by reputation,” Swartz said. “The D.C. Bar’s findings are rather definitive, and he does not have the right to relitigate them in Florida.”
Klayman responded to his Florida suspension in an email to Bloomberglaw.com. “I will be moving for a rehearing en banc to obtain a reasoned decision based on the actual record and if necessary file for a petition for writ of certiorari and/or writ of mandamus before the US Supreme Court, based on a denial of constitutional rights,” he wrote.
There may be more consequences for Klayman. A separate Florida Bar complaint filed Oct. 13 could, if sustained, increase his punishment to a longer suspension or disbarment. The new case is another spin-off of a D.C. disciplinary action.
At age 74 and after 48 years as a licensed Florida attorney, Klayman may choose to stop fighting for his career and retire. Two federal trial judges have banned him from their courtrooms in New York and California. D.C. Bar authorities, who have a long and contentious history with Klayman, have twice suspended him for 18 months, most recently in August.
A Nevada federal district judge responded to Klayman’s questionable reports about his D.C. grievance history by preventing him from entering a case. Klayman argued the judge was denying his Nevada client the lawyer he wanted.
But the Ninth Circuit federal appeals court sided with the judge, writing that Klayman “has shown a pattern of disregard for local rules, ethics, and decorum; and he has demonstrated a lack of respect for the judicial process by suing the district judge personally.”
KLAYMAN V. JUDICIAL WATCH
Klayman’s first D.C. suspension had a greater impact on him in Florida, where it triggered the two-year suspension the Supreme Court approved on Nov. 6.
One D.C. Bar dispute touched on Klayman’s rocky relationship with Judicial Watch, the nonprofit he launched in 1994 and left in 2003 to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Florida Democrat Bob Graham. Graham didn’t run for reelection, Klayman lost to Mel Martinez in the Republican primary, and Martinez won the Senate election in 2004.
While Klayman was still associated with Judicial Watch in the early 2000s, he represented three clients in actions against his own organization, according to a D.C. Bar investigation. In 2020 he was found to have violated conflict of interest rules and suspended for 90 days.
Judicial Watch is “a nonpartisan, public interest organization” that “seeks to promote accountability, transparency and integrity in government, and fidelity to the rule of law,” says an amicus brief supporting Trump that Judicial Watch filed in a U.S. Supreme Court case.
In 2004 Klayman founded Freedom Watch, “a public interest group that promotes ethics in government and the legal system through educational endeavors and peaceful and legal actions,” according to the website.
It’s hard to tell the two nonprofits apart, which was a problem for Klayman.
In 2006 he sued Judicial Watch for breach of contract and lost. Judicial Watch countered that Klayman violated his severance deal, in part by starting Freedom Watch, and won a $2.3 million judgment and $700,000 in attorney fees. Both were upheld on appeal in February.
Klayman has described himself as a patriot fighting for justice and “a thorn in the side of the abusers of power and privilege in government and the media.” He calls Bar grievances “sham proceedings initiated as retaliation for his conservative watchdog efforts against prominent liberal figures,” the Nov. 6 Supreme Court ruling states.
Klayman did not respond to emailed questions from Florida Bulldog.
FLORIDA IMPORTS ETHICS CASE
The ultra-conservative Florida Supreme Court’s Klayman ruling speaks volumes because he personifies the MAGA legal movement in the Trump era.
Klayman has what the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a “pathologically litigious” career. He’s notable for his aggressive messaging of rightist-fringe theories and relentless attacks on politicians — beginning with President Clinton — judges, other lawyers and the media.
In October 2024 Klayman filed Loomer’s $150 million lawsuit against Maher and HBO claiming the talk show host defamed and damaged her by suggesting she had an affair with Trump. The case is pending in Orlando state court.
Loomer, a far-right Trump influencer, took the opportunity of a deposition to dump on Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, TV host George Stephanopoulos and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA. – the last, for putting “roast beef in her pockets,” Loomer was widely quoted as saying under oath.
Swartz said Klayman appears to file most of his lawsuits “solely for the purpose of getting discovery from people. He doesn’t expect to win his cases.” Discovery is evidence produced through the litigation process.
“If you’re MAGA or you’re a liberal and you have a justified cause, that’s fine,” Swartz said. “But to make up litigation for which you have no factual support based upon theories for which there is no factual support, that’s abusing the legal system. And that’s why it needs to be called out on either side.”
On Nov. 6 the Florida Supreme Court came down hard on Klayman after applying a rule of “reciprocity” for grievance cases.
Legal reciprocity usually is about one state honoring a lawyer’s license or education credits from another state. In the Klayman matter, the court took misconduct findings from D.C. and treated them as if they came from a Florida Bar investigation.
In 2022 D.C. ethics authorities decided that Klayman had failed to properly represent a female client for whom he had “strong feelings.” They said he violated ethics rules against revealing a client’s confidential information and changing a fee agreement without the client’s consent.
And they noted that two years earlier, Klayman had been suspended for 90 days for his conflicts of interest involving Judicial Watch.
FL COURT STIFFENS KLAYMAN PENALTY
The Florida Bar took up both sets of D.C. charges, which Klayman vigorously disputed to the extent of suing the D.C. lawyers who investigated him. A referee serving as fact-finder heard and rejected Klayman’s defense that the Florida Bar waited too long to prosecute, then recommended the two-year suspension.
The Supreme Court agreed to impose a stiffer penalty than the one D.C. gave Klayman for the same conduct. There, he was suspended for 18 months; the Florida court tacked on another six months, for a two-year suspension.
“This Court is free to impose a harsher sanction in a reciprocal discipline proceeding than that imposed in the foreign jurisdiction,” the unsigned, unanimous opinion says.
The court did not question the referee’s weighing of seven aggravating and two mitigating factors against Klayman. Although he put on witnesses attesting to his good character, the referee found “a pattern of misconduct,” “bad faith obstruction of disciplinary proceedings,” “submission of false evidence” and more.
Swartz said it’s crucial for Bar leadership to punish such misconduct.
“If the behavior crosses the line from advocacy to obstruction or retribution or bullying, then the Bar has to call it out,” he said.
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