Far-right activist Laura Loomer owes a pair of Muslim advocacy organizations nearly $125,000 in legal fees. But rather than pay up herself, she’s accusing her former lawyer of malpractice and demanding that he pay instead.
Loomer has been banned from multiple social media sites, rideshare apps, and food delivery companies for hate speech. After her ban from Twitter in 2018, Loomer fell for a prank that falsely suggested the Council on American-Islamic Relations had conspired to kick her off the platform. She sued CAIR, unsuccessfully, and was ordered to pay legal fees to the organization and its Florida chapter. Instead, in a Tuesday filing, Loomer’s attorney Larry Klayman accused her previous attorney Ron Coleman of “malpractice,” and requested another delay in the case while Loomer’s new legal team takes action against her old legal team.
The Tuesday filing comes after CAIR’s lawyers filed a motion to compel Loomer’s team to respond to paperwork, which CAIR claimed was long overdue. CAIR’s lawyers “have made efforts to communicate with [Loomer’s] counsel, but have received no response,” their filing claims.
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On Tuesday, Klayman denied that Loomer’s legal team had acted improperly.
“Plaintiffs are not trying to flout any court process. They have been attempting, through undersigned counsel, to get their previous counsel, Ronald D. Coleman, Esq (‘Mr. Coleman’), from Dhillon Law Group, Inc., to pay any assessed fees as she is of the firm belief that they committed malpractice,” Klayman wrote.
He asked the court to delay 45 days because “plaintiffs are now forced to bring a claim for malpractice or to interplead them into this instant case.”
Coleman, who previously represented Loomer in the lawsuit, attributed the filing to Klayman’s penchant for making headlines.
“Laura filed a lawsuit that she very much wanted to file,” Coleman told The Daily Beast. “I think it was a difficult claim, and I think it was, frankly, wrongly decided. She had a meritorious claim. But she’s not happy with how it worked out....”
Loomer did not return The Daily Beast’s request for comment. (She announced Tuesday on Telegram that she wouldn’t speak to media this week, because she hasn’t been feeling well lately.) Reached for comment, Klayman declined to comment on the filing.
“I’m not commenting on that and I’m just putting you on notice that your disgusting, leftist hack paper will be sued if you defame [Loomer] or me,” Klayman told The Daily Beast. “You can quote me on that, goodbye, and you will be sued personally.”
Klayman is a longtime figure in conservative and fringe legal circles, known for his aggressive (if not necessarily successful) court filings. “Larry Klayman is a pathologically litigious attorney and professional gadfly notorious for suing everyone from Iran’s Supreme Leader to his own mother,” the Southern Poverty Law Center’s profile of Klayman reads.
Klayman is currently under an 18-month suspension from practicing law in D.C., after an appellate court found that he had created a conflict of interest by expressing romantic feelings for a woman he was representing in a sexual harassment case. The court found that Klayman had continued to act as the woman’s lawyer even after she dismissed him. He also received 90-day suspensions from practicing law in 2020 and 2021, over a different conflict of interests.
Klayman previously represented Loomer in a 2018 lawsuit against social media companies from which she had been banned. (The suit was dismissed in court.)
Loomer’s lawsuit against CAIR, on which Coleman was previously listed as lead attorney, was similarly unsuccessful. The case began after Loomer was banned from Twitter in 2018 for criticizing Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Muslim faith. Loomer protested by handcuffing herself to the doors of Twitter’s New York City offices, a stunt that caught the attention of the left-wing prank group Bernard Media. The group posed as Twitter employees and falsely told Loomer that her ban had come after CAIR lobbied Twitter to suspend her.
When Loomer sued CAIR for the alleged conspiracy in 2019, the civil rights group obtained a written statement from Bernard Media’s leader, Nathan Bernard, who admitted to having been behind the hoax. Two months later, in October 2019, CAIR suggested Loomer drop the case for a $1 settlement. Loomer declined and forged ahead with the case.
She lost the case and multiple appeal efforts. The court ordered her to cover CAIR’s $124,423.37 legal fees.
The judge in the case appears unconvinced by Loomer’s efforts to delay the case while she accuses Coleman of malpractice. In a Wednesday order, the judge stated that Loomer’s “malpractice allegations against their counsel are irrelevant” to her legal obligations to CAIR.
If Loomer’s team continues to drag its feet past May 15, they will need to explain why the judge shouldn’t impose a civil contempt charge, the judge continued.
Coleman said he blames Klayman, not Loomer, for the filing.
“I think he’s using [this case] as a vehicle to stay relevant and give the appearance of someone who is still entrusted with legal work as part of the conservative movement,” Coleman said. “But I certainly hope it doesn’t reach the point where she authorizes him to file what would most certainly be a meritless claim against me or anyone I work with.”
