Miami Mayor to Keep Quinn Emanuel Job During White House Run
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez plans to keep his job at a top law firm while running for president, saying he sees no conflict of interest.
“The answer is that I am still at Quinn Emanuel today,” Suarez said in an interview Thursday, hours after announcing his longshot bid for the Republican nomination. “At some point, I may take a leave of absence.”
Suarez has worked at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan since 2021, when the massive firm launched a Miami office across the street from City Hall in Coconut Grove. The firm, which brought in more than $1.6 billion in gross revenue last year, counts Twitter Inc.’s Elon Musk, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and hedge fund giant Citadel as clients.
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Suarez has come under fire for other conflicts of interest. A side job as consultant for a local real estate developer has led to multiple investigations, according to the Miami Herald, as the developer that hired him claimed, in internal company documents, to have paid Suarez $170,000 to help cut through red tape. Suarez has denied wrongdoing.
“To the extent that the mayor’s regulatory noncompliance is entangled with the economic interests of campaign donors and often undisclosed private sector employers doing business with the City of Miami, his conduct raises very troubling questions of ethical candor, civic accountability, and government transparency,” said Anthony Alfieri, a University of Miami law professor.
Suarez also has worked for private equity company DaGrosa Capital Partners while serving as the city’s top elected official.
“I don’t see anything that presents a conflict other than my time and energy,” he said of his continued work for Quinn Emanuel.
A Quinn Emanuel spokesperson did not immediately respond to a comment request.
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Several of Suarez’s predecessors have held other jobs while mayor, which is traditionally viewed as a part-time role. His jurisdiction is a fraction of the size of that controlled by the larger Miami-Dade County government.
Suarez, 45, has been a cheerleader for the influx of tech entrepreneurs—he says he converts his city paycheck to Bitcoin—and investment money to South Florida. But after the FTX fiasco and as tech funding trickles down in Miami, some of the effort has backfired.
Quinn Emanuel is among the country’s 30 largest law firms, tallying more than $5.2 billion in profits per equity partner last year. It’s best known for working on high stakes court fights.
The firm said when it hired Suarez that the firm would take certain unidentified steps to avoid conflicts. Suarez is required by local ethics rules to avoid taking action as mayor that would “directly or indirectly affect” the law firm, according to a 2020 memo issued by county officials in response to a guidance request from the mayor’s office.
He joins a cluttered field of about a dozen Republican hopefuls looking to snag the GOP nomination and face off against President Joe Biden in the general election in 2024.
Miami attorneys contributed more than $66,000 to Suarez’s mayoral campaigns since his first election in 2017, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of city campaign finance records. Lawyers from firms like Akerman, Becker & Poliakoff and Greenspoon Marder, collectively gave $23,000 to Suarez’s mayoral war chest.
Suarez worked as a real estate lawyer at Greenspoon Marder earlier in his tenure as mayor and had previous stops at Gray Robinson and Alvarez and Barbara.
