Wearing dark shades and exuding an easy charm, Atlanta attorney Drew Findling once got Cardi B’s felony assault charges reduced to misdemeanors. He scored an acquittal for the rapper Waka Flocka Flame after authorities found a gun in his bag at the Atlanta airport. And he persuaded officials to reduce charges against a member of the group Migos who was arrested following a concert.
Findling, called the #BillionDollarLawyer by the hip-hop stars and professional athletes who employ him, has represented high-profile clients in criminal and civil cases across the US. But he’ll face the most complex challenge of his 39-year legal career if another one of his celebrity clients, Donald Trump, is indicted for trying to overturn the Georgia presidential election in 2020.
The two aren’t an obvious match. In Trump, Findling has a notoriously difficult client in a perilous situation, with a reputation for disregarding legal advice. Findling, for his part, supports progressive legal causes and criticized Trump during his time in the White House, once calling him “racist” and “pathetic” in a tweet.
Still, lawyers who know Findling, 63, say he’s uniquely positioned to defend the former president. He’s tried hundreds of cases, ranging from violent crimes to political corruption, giving him a deep understanding of the Fulton County prosecutors, judges and jurors who could decide if Trump must trade Mar-a-Lago for a prison cell. Findling also has experience working with rappers whose violent lyrics can get them in trouble — useful training for defending Trump, who has a penchant for making outrageous statements the former president says shouldn’t be taken literally.
It isn’t certain that Trump, who denies wrongdoing, will get indicted. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a tough-on-crime Democrat, is weighing an advisory report from a special grand jury. The public details of that report said grand jurors recommended perjury charges against at least one of the 75 witnesses who testified.
The foreperson of that grand jury, Emily Kohrs, gave several surprisingly frank media interviews this week, telling NBC that the panel recommended indicting more than a dozen people, and hinting Trump might be one of them. The unusual candor about secret proceedings is almost certain to be used by lawyers defending anyone ultimately charged.
“The lens now provided by this foreperson into the lack of seriousness and respect for this process that existed behind the grand jury walls is truly shocking to the legal conscience,” Findling said in an email Thursday.
In the weeks ahead, Willis could ask a new grand jury to indict Trump and his associates, though no such panel has heard evidence, according to a person familiar with the matter. Trump could face charges covering election crimes or even a more sweeping case under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, or RICO. Penalties could range from a $1,000 fine and a year in jail for some misdemeanors to a maximum of 20 years in prison for RICO.
A Trump spokesman declined to comment on Findling's hiring. The former president is also represented in the Georgia case by Atlanta lawyer Jennifer Little, a former assistant district attorney in nearby DeKalb County.
At Findling’s office in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood, dozens of photos of him and his famous clients line the walls. Behind his desk are three bobbleheads representing the members of the rap group Migos -- Takeoff, Quavo and Offset, who is married to Cardi B. In November, Findling was widely quoted in global media when he confirmed that Takeoff was killed in a shooting outside a Houston bowling alley.
He keeps a frenetic schedule. One recent week, he was in Miami and Los Angeles on legal disputes involving the rapper DaBaby. He then went to New Orleans, where he represents National Football League running back Alvin Kamara, who was charged after a fight at a Las Vegas nightclub.
The next week began with Findling and his law partner Marissa Goldberg at a hearing in Atlanta federal court for a client charged with illegally possessing a gun and a guilty plea for a different client with a firearm. A Fulton County judge rejected Findling’s bid for a trial date or bond for YFN Lucci, an Atlanta rap artist locked up on murder and RICO charges. Two days later, Findling was back in federal court with John Oxendine, a former Georgia insurance commissioner accused of health-care fraud.
During a recent interview, Findling wouldn’t discuss the specifics of Trump’s case. He conceded that his personal politics don’t match Trump’s, but says he didn’t hesitate to take on the former president as a client when lawyers who represented Trump contacted him in the summer of 2022 and asked if he’d consider the job.
“My commitment to my career and my clients is very different from my personal life, and my personal beliefs, and my personal political bent,’’ Findling said.
The closest Findling would get to commenting on Trump’s case is expressing disdain for what he says is Fulton County prosecutors’ overuse of the RICO statute, a weapon Willis deploys in her war on gang violence in Atlanta. It’s based on a federal law originally used against mobsters. Findling won an acquittal of Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill on state RICO charges in 2013.
“RICO’s an abused statute, which makes it easier for prosecutors to get a conviction,’’ Findling said. “RICO is the legal equivalent of anabolic steroids in baseball.’’
Findling was raised by a single mother on Long Island and moved to Atlanta to attend college. He stayed for law school and joined Fulton County’s public defender’s office for several years. When he started his own firm, Findling tried case after case. He said jurors connect with defense lawyers who master the evidence.
“Just do your job and be crazily prepared and you'll create that connection,’’ he said. “They reward folks they think are genuinely concerned about the plight of their client.’’
Findling’s reputation began to take off in Atlanta’s rap world after he represented Gucci Mane, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to a gun charge. As he immersed himself more in the hip-hop world, he said he underwent a transformation spurred by seeing the racial injustice his clients often endured, such as the marijuana arrests of Migos and others following a concert at Georgia Southern University in 2015.
“There is this perception that hip hop, that rap music is all tied up in violence and drugs, and that’s crap. These are young people that are expressing an art form and expressing a frustration,’’ he said in a 2019 speech given when he was president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “I’m very aware of the fact that I’m just a white dude. But I have really gone out of my way to try to understand.”
The attorney acquired his #BillionDollarLawyer nickname from the Memphis rapper Young Dolph after visiting him in Hollywood, where he’d been shot. The nickname stuck. Young Dolph died in 2021 from 22 gunshots.
Two of Findling’s three adult children have followed in his footsteps, working as public defenders in Fulton County.
In his office, Findling insists that only about 5% of his caseload involves celebrities. But he clearly loves that part of his work.
“I just really try to get to know them,’’ he said. “They have fascinating stories and they're interesting young people and they have interesting families. They're just super talented at something that I truly don't even understand.’’
Lawyers who’ve worked with Findling say that beyond his ability to connect with juries and clients, another advantage is the way he can press his case with prosecutors who are considering whether or not to file charges.
Findling has an “uncanny ability’’ to make his case to law-enforcement officials, according to William Briggs, an attorney at Venable LLP in Los Angeles who has worked with Findling on mutual clients for a decade.
“I’m just looking to see if this prosecutor is going to go forward with an indictment against the former president,’’ Briggs said. “If not, it might demonstrate the reason why he chose Drew Findling to represent him in Atlanta.’’
--With assistance from Mark Niquette.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
