Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld

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VERIFIEDPRIMARY SOURCES
VERIFIED 2026-03-31
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lobbying k-street pharma defense finance tech trade bipartisan revolving-door

related: PhRMA · Lockheed Martin · Blackrock · Goldman Sachs · Google · Meta · Verizon · Business Roundtable · _Lobbying Firms Framework

Who They Are

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is one of the largest lobbying operations in Washington, D.C., and the nation’s top-billing lobbying firm by 2025 revenue. Founded in Dallas in 1945 by Robert Strauss and Richard Gump, the firm has grown into an international law firm with over 1,000 attorneys, 1,800+ employees, and 19 offices worldwide. Its D.C. lobbying practice is the firm’s crown jewel — a revolving door machine that converts former committee chairs, cabinet secretaries, and Senate staffers into access infrastructure for the highest-paying clients in American industry.

In 2025, Akin Gump billed $65.4 million from 307 lobbying clients — the highest single-year lobbying revenue total in the firm’s history. In 2024, the firm collected $56.6 million from 269 clients, ranking it second nationally. The surge to #1 reflects both aggressive revolving door hiring and a client base that spans every major sector of the donor class: pharma, defense, finance, tech, trade, tobacco, and foreign governments.

The firm’s PAC, Bridge PAC, maintains campaign contribution relationships with the politicians its lobbyists lobby — the standard mechanism for converting contribution relationships into access.

Money

Akin Gump billed $65.4M in 2025 from 307 clients — that’s an average of $213,000 per client per year for the legal right to pick up the phone and get a congressional staffer on the line. The revolving door is the product. Former committee chairs and agency heads are the inventory. Clients are buying the relationship, not the legal work.

Client List

Akin Gump’s 2024-2025 client roster covers the full spectrum of the donor class. Top billed clients and sector distribution:

Pharma & Healthcare

  • Amgen Inc ($200,000 — 2024) — biotech giant lobbying on drug pricing and Medicare reimbursement
  • Abbott Laboratories ($240,000 — 2024) — medical devices and diagnostics
  • Alkeus Pharmaceuticals ($240,000 — 2024) — rare disease drug approvals
  • Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) — the industry’s primary trade lobby
  • Siemens AG / Siemens Healthineers — medical imaging and diagnostics
  • US Pharmacopeial Convention — drug quality standards
  • Bamboo Health — behavioral health technology

Finance & Wall Street

  • BlackRock Inc ($240,000+ — 2024) — asset management; lobbied on financial regulation
  • Bain Capital — private equity; lobbied on tax and financial services
  • KKR & Co — private equity giant
  • FS Investments — alternative investment management
  • Visa Inc ($180,000+ — 2024) — payment processing; lobbied on interchange fees
  • American Express ($100,000 — 2024)
  • American Council of Life Insurers — insurance industry trade group
  • Financial Services Forum — Wall Street’s premier CEO lobbying group

Tech & AI

  • Alphabet Inc / Google ($170,000 — 2024) — lobbied on antitrust, AI regulation, data policy
  • OpenAI — AI policy and regulation
  • Adobe Inc ($180,000 — 2024)
  • SalesForce.com — enterprise software
  • Shein Group / Shein Technology — Chinese fast-fashion platform
  • ANT Group ($600,000 — 2024) — Chinese fintech giant, Jack Ma’s company; highest single biller
  • Hesai Group — Chinese lidar technology
  • Coupang Inc — South Korean e-commerce

Defense & Aerospace

  • Lockheed Martin (via Terran Orbital subsidiary) — defense and space contractor
  • Varda Space Industries — space manufacturing

Trade & Foreign

  • Nippon Steel — Japanese steel company; major 2024 client opposing Biden’s blocked acquisition of US Steel
  • Anheuser-Busch InBev ($380,000 — 2024) — Belgian-Brazilian brewing conglomerate
  • AB Volvo / Volvo Group North America ($150,000 — 2025)
  • Alliance for Automotive Innovation ($310,000 — 2025) — auto industry trade group on EV mandates
  • Associations of Mexican Tomato Growers — trade/agriculture
  • US-China Business Council — bilateral trade advocacy

Tobacco & Consumer

  • Altria Group / Altria Client Services ($200,000 — 2024) — Philip Morris parent company
  • Philip Morris International — global tobacco

Other Notable

  • Business Roundtable — CEO lobbying organization for Fortune 500 companies
  • US Chamber of Commerce (via Institute for Legal Reform) — largest business lobby in America
  • Adani Group / Adani Solar USA — Indian conglomerate, Gautam Adani; hired despite active DOJ investigation

The Revolving Door

This is Akin Gump’s core product. In 2024, 41 of 74 registered lobbyists (55.4%) were revolving door hires — former government employees who now lobby their former colleagues. Three were former Members of Congress.

Former Members of Congress

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) — Joined January 2019 after 30 years in Congress. Former Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Within months, she was lobbying for clients with direct MENA ties: the Swifthold Foundation (negotiating a $6 billion lawsuit with a Qatari sheikh) explicitly sought her “experience advocating fair dealings in the Middle East.” Laureate Education, a global network with schools in the Middle East, added her as a lobbyist. She received $31,500 in campaign contributions from Akin Gump affiliates during her congressional career — the firm was investing in her future employment before she left office.

Lamar Smith (R-TX) — Joined January 7, 2019 — four days after leaving Congress. Former Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Akin Gump announced his hire on January 7, one day after the new Congress was sworn in. Within weeks of his arrival, Strangeworks Inc. (a quantum computing startup) registered as a new Akin Gump client — a direct fit for Smith’s committee expertise. ISM Connect, a facial recognition AI firm, registered shortly after. Smith had personally championed the National Quantum Initiative Act, a $1.3 billion government program, during his final months in Congress; the bill was signed into law two weeks before his Akin Gump hire was announced. He then immediately began pitching AI and quantum clients using that committee track record. He received $27,400 in Akin Gump affiliate contributions during his congressional tenure.

Filemon Vela Jr. (D-TX) — Former Democratic Representative from Texas’s 34th congressional district. Joined Akin Gump after leaving Congress. Serves as a counterweight to Ros-Lehtinen and Smith’s Republican relationships — the firm maintains explicit bipartisan access architecture.

Former Senators & Cabinet Officials

Joe Donnelly (D-IN) — Former Democratic Senator from Indiana (2013–2019). After losing his 2018 reelection bid, Donnelly was appointed by Biden as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See (2021–2025). Joined Akin Gump after his ambassadorship — carrying both Senate relationships and State Department access into the firm’s client service operation.

Tommy Thompson — Former Governor of Wisconsin (1987–2001) and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under George W. Bush. Senior consultant. His HHS background makes him a natural gateway for the firm’s pharmaceutical and healthcare clients.

John E. Sununu — Former U.S. Senator from New Hampshire (2003–2009) and former White House Chief of Staff (under George H.W. Bush through his father, John H. Sununu). Provides Republican Senate access.

Former Senior Staff

Anna Abram — Revolving door profile. Works on pharma and healthcare clients including Abbott Laboratories, Amgen, and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. Former HHS official.

Jen Becker-Pollet — Joined Akin Gump as Senior Counsel in March 2026, directly from the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations where she served as Clerk and Subcommittee Staff Director for the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee. She managed a team of four and oversaw approximately $30 billion in annual appropriated funds for the Democratic Caucus. Her decade-plus on both House and Senate Appropriations committees represents exactly the kind of senior appropriations pipeline that converts committee oversight into corporate access. With the 2025 TCJA fight and continuing appropriations battles consuming Congress, her arrival gives Akin Gump a direct line into the Senate’s spending architecture — the ultimate commodity for defense, pharma, and financial sector clients seeking earmarks and program funding.

Molly (Brimmer) Lolli — Joined Akin Gump as Senior Policy Advisor in March 2026, from the House Energy & Commerce Committee where she served as Senior Counsel on the Health Subcommittee. Akin Gump described the hire as strengthening its “market leading health policy team at a time of surging federal health care-related lobbying activity.” The timing is deliberate: healthcare lobbying spending has hit record levels as the industry fights Medicare drug price negotiation under the IRA, and E&C Health Subcommittee staff are the people who wrote the policy frameworks now under attack. Lolli’s E&C expertise directly serves Akin Gump’s pharma clients — PhRMA, Amgen, Abbott — who need someone who knows how the Health Subcommittee operates from the inside.

Brendan Dunn — Revolving door profile. Lobbies for BlackRock, Business Roundtable, Crypto Council for Innovation, Financial Services Forum, Koch Inc, Visa, and Verizon — the full financial sector client portfolio.

Ryan Ellis — Revolving door profile. Works on tax policy for the Business Roundtable, Center for a Free Economy, DoorDash, and PhRMA — tax reform access on behalf of every major sector simultaneously.

Campaign Bundlers

Geoffrey K. Verhoff — Senior Advisor, Lobbying & Public Policy

Background: Not a traditional revolving door government hire. Verhoff served as Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee’s finance arm from 2017 to 2021, and was Trump’s largest known money bundler during the 2024 election cycle, raising at least $3.6 million for the Trump 47 Committee. He is the clearest structural example of the Bundling Operation pattern: the same individual who raises campaign contributions for a politician is simultaneously retained by the lobbying firm that then represents clients who need access to that politician’s administration.

In Q1 2025 alone — the first three months after Trump’s inauguration — Verhoff personally generated $3.4 million in new client billings, led by Nippon Steel’s $1.7 million payment to Akin Gump. The Trump access he built as a campaign bundler became immediately monetizable the moment the administration took office. His single biggest client is Nippon Steel, for whom he ran one of the most consequential lobbying reversals of 2025 alongside Ballard Partners’ Brian Ballard.

Money

Verhoff is the most direct example in this vault of what “bundler” means structurally: a person who raises campaign money for a politician while simultaneously working at the firm that lobbies that politician’s administration. The $3.6 million Verhoff bundled for Trump’s 2024 campaign was an investment — in relationships, in access, in the implicit claim that he can get a client into the room. The $3.4 million he generated in Q1 2025 lobbying fees is the return on that investment. Campaign contributions and lobbying fees are legally separate instruments. Structurally, they are the same transaction on a longer time horizon.

Money

Lamar Smith joined Akin Gump four days after leaving the Science, Space, and Technology chairmanship. Two weeks earlier, he had signed into law a $1.3 billion quantum computing initiative he championed. The quantum computing clients followed him through the door. The National Quantum Initiative Act was simultaneously a public policy achievement and a prospectus for future lobbying clients. The chairman’s gavel and the lobbyist’s retainer are the same instrument played in sequence.

What They Deliver

Akin Gump’s documented lobbying outcomes trace a direct line from client retainer to policy return:

Tax Policy (2024: 232 reports, 68 clients, 31 lobbyists) — The firm’s single largest issue area. Clients include Business Roundtable, Financial Services Forum, Bain Capital, KKR, and Visa — all seeking favorable treatment in any tax reform legislation. Ryan Ellis, a revolving door hire, coordinates this portfolio.

Pharmaceutical Pricing — PhRMA, Amgen, and Abbott use the firm to lobby against drug price negotiation provisions in Medicare. The health issues portfolio (104 reports, 33 clients, 34 lobbyists) reflects the firm’s position as a primary shield for pharmaceutical industry pricing power.

Trade and Steel (Nippon Steel, 2024–2025) — K Street’s Most-Watched 2025 Win — Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel was blocked by Biden in January 2025 after bipartisan opposition from Trump, Harris, and Biden during the campaign. Rather than abandon the deal, Nippon Steel retained Akin Gump for a second lobbying campaign targeting the new Trump administration — paying the firm over $5.5 million total, with $1.7 million flowing in Q1 2025 alone. Senior Advisor Geoffrey Verhoff — Trump’s largest 2024 campaign bundler ($3.6M for the Trump 47 Committee) — led the Akin Gump effort alongside Brian Ballard of Ballard Partners.

On May 23, 2025, Trump reversed his prior opposition and announced a “planned partnership.” The deal was formally approved June 13, 2025 and closed June 18, 2025, with terms granting Trump a personal “golden share” veto over key corporate decisions, a commitment to maintain U.S. Steel’s Pittsburgh headquarters with an American CEO, and a Nippon pledge of $14 billion in U.S. manufacturing investment including $2.4 billion directed to Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley.

Sludge described the reversal directly: “Trump Flip-Flopped on U.S. Steel Deal After Lobbying Blitz by His Top Bundlers.” Verhoff raised Trump’s campaign money. Verhoff lobbied Trump’s administration on behalf of Nippon Steel. Trump reversed. The Nippon Steel deal is also a case of Client Conflict Laundering: Akin Gump simultaneously represented the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (which opposed the deal on trade grounds) and Nippon Steel (the acquirer) — extracting fees from both sides of the same transaction.

Multiple Akin Gump lobbyists registered for Nippon Steel: Jose Borjon, Joseph Fawkner, Christina Barone among them, with Verhoff as the relationship lead.

AI and Emerging Tech — Lamar Smith’s quantum/AI portfolio positioned Akin Gump for the AI lobbying gold rush. In 2024, the firm registered OpenAI as a client and is now lobbying on AI regulation on behalf of both established tech giants (Google, Alphabet) and AI startups simultaneously.

Foreign Government Access — The firm represents the governments of Japan, South Korea, the Maldives, Nicaragua, and formerly Hong Kong (wound down Beijing office in 2024). Ros-Lehtinen’s Middle East expertise serves this foreign client portfolio alongside the domestic lobbying operation.

Contradiction

Akin Gump presents itself as a bipartisan law firm committed to public service — its “public law and policy” practice is framed as civic expertise brought to bear on complex policy questions. What the firm actually sells is institutionalized access: former committee chairs who lobby their former committees, former agency heads who lobby their former agencies, campaign contribution recipients who become clients’ advocates. The CREW investigation documented Lamar Smith lobbying on science issues while his campaign PAC simultaneously contributed to members of his old committee. The public service frame is the product; the corruption is the delivery mechanism.

The Bipartisan Model

Akin Gump has maintained bipartisan access for over three decades, predating the explicit “two-party access firm” model that competitors now market:

Democratic relationships — Al From (founder and former CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council), Joe Donnelly (former Democratic Senator), Filemon Vela Jr. (former Democratic Representative), and multiple Democratic-aligned staff hires provide access to Democratic committee chairs, Senate leadership, and the Biden-era executive branch. The firm’s PAC historically donates majority Democratic: 66% of the $2.56 million donated in the 2012 cycle went to Democratic candidates.

Republican relationships — Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (former Republican Foreign Affairs subcommittee chair), Lamar Smith (former Republican Science committee chair), Tommy Thompson (former Republican HHS Secretary), John E. Sununu (former Republican Senator), and Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr. (former Republican Assistant Secretary of State) provide the Republican half of the access ledger.

The mechanism — Clients who need outcomes regardless of which party controls Congress pay a premium for a firm that can deliver access to both. ANT Group ($600K — the firm’s biggest 2024 client) is a Chinese fintech firm needing favorable regulatory treatment from whichever administration is in power. The bipartisan model ensures the investment is protected across election cycles.

Money

The firm’s PAC donated 66% to Democrats in 2012. That same firm employs Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lamar Smith on the Republican side. Clients aren’t buying partisan advocacy — they’re buying insurance. The bipartisan model isn’t ideological moderation; it’s hedging. Every dollar donated to both sides is a down payment on access regardless of the outcome. The corruption is the symmetry.

Lobbying-to-Policy Timeline

DateRecipient/TargetAmountPolicy ReturnTime Gap
Jan 2019House Science, Space & Technology Committee (via Smith)$27,400 (career contributions to Smith)Strangeworks/quantum computing clients signed immediately post-hire; Smith lobbied on AI/science issues4 days (Smith hired Jan 7, left Jan 3)
Jan 2019House Foreign Affairs MENA Subcommittee (via Ros-Lehtinen)$31,500 (career contributions to Ros-Lehtinen)Swifthold Foundation ($6B Qatari deal), Laureate Education (MENA schools) signed as clientsWeeks after hire
2019House Science Committee members$21,000 (Smith PAC post-retirement donations)Smith campaign PAC donated to 9 Science Committee members after leaving; parallel to his lobbying on AI/quantumOngoing concurrent
2024Senate Finance Committee / House Ways & Means~$9.2M (tax issue lobbying fees across 68 clients)Tax policy protection for Business Roundtable, KKR, Bain, Visa, Financial Services ForumAnnual cycle
Jan 2025Biden Admin / CFIUS / Commerce Dept$5.5M+ total (Nippon Steel lobbying fees)Biden blocks Nippon Steel acquisition of US Steel; Akin Gump pivots to Phase 2 lobbying targeting incoming Trump administration—
Jun 2025White House / Trump (via Verhoff bundling + Ballard)$3.4M Q1 2025 alone (Verhoff-led)Trump reverses May 2025; deal approved June 13, CLOSED June 18, 2025 — golden share structure, $14B investment pledge, American CEO5 months post-Biden block
2024HHS / FDA / Senate HELP Committee~$4.2M (pharma health issue lobbying)Drug pricing negotiation limitations; PhRMA, Amgen, Abbott maintained pricing power in IRA implementationOngoing
2024Senate Commerce / relevant AI committeesOpenAI retainer (undisclosed)OpenAI positioned for favorable AI regulatory framework ahead of federal AI legislationOngoing
2025Congress/Executive (all clients)$65.4M total billedFull spectrum: tax, pharma, defense, tech, trade policy outcomes pendingAnnual

Money

Lamar Smith’s post-retirement PAC contributions are the tell. After leaving the Science Committee chairmanship and joining Akin Gump, Texans for Lamar Smith donated $11,000 to 9 members of his old committee — most of whom had never received a contribution from him before. Campaign contributions to committee members, made while he was simultaneously lobbying on science issues. The revolving door doesn’t stop at the office door; the campaign finance machine keeps spinning on behalf of the new employer.

Billing vs. Outcomes

Revenue trajectory:

  • 2023: ~$54.7M
  • 2024: $56.6M (269 clients)
  • 2025: $65.4M (307 clients) — record high, firm’s largest year ever

Client ROI model: At an average retainer of $213,000/year (2025 figures), clients are purchasing: direct access to a former committee chair or senior official, coordination with campaign contribution bundlers, regulatory intelligence from former agency staff, and legislative drafting support from people who wrote the laws they’re now trying to modify.

The Nippon Steel case study in bundler-powered lobbying: Nippon Steel’s acquisition was blocked by Biden in January 2025. Akin Gump’s response was to leverage its deepest Trump asset — Geoffrey Verhoff, the Trump campaign’s largest money bundler at $3.6 million — to run a second lobbying campaign on the new administration. The strategy worked. Trump reversed course in May 2025, the deal closed June 18, 2025, and Nippon Steel paid over $5.5 million to Akin Gump total. The ROI for Nippon Steel is straightforward: $5.5 million in lobbying fees secured a $14.9 billion acquisition that had been declared dead by the prior administration. The lobbying fee was approximately 0.04% of the deal value. The Nippon Steel case is the clearest 2025 illustration of the Verhoff model: campaign contributions convert into lobbying access, lobbying access converts into presidential policy reversals.

The pharma price protection operation: PhRMA, Amgen, and Abbott collectively paid the firm millions across multiple cycles to limit the scope of Medicare drug price negotiation under the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA’s negotiation provisions were narrowed to 10 drugs in the first year rather than immediate broad application — an outcome the pharma lobby lobbying had fought for. Akin Gump’s health issues portfolio (104 reports, 33 clients) was part of that operation.

Class Analysis

Akin Gump is the institutional infrastructure of legalized corruption made legible. The firm doesn’t hide what it sells — its own press releases announce the hire of former committee chairs by name and describe their expertise in the exact policy areas those chairs formerly controlled. The CREW investigation documented the mechanics in real time: chair leaves, clients sign, PAC contributions flow to the chair’s old committee. The legal framework calls this “legitimate advocacy.” The class analysis calls it exactly what it is: the commodification of public service.

The revolving door at Akin Gump operates as a Revolving Door Hub — the firm’s primary competitive advantage is not legal expertise but former-official inventory. 55.4% revolving door rate means the majority of the firm’s lobbying operation is built on converted public servants. The government paid for their training, the public paid for their security clearances and committee access, and Akin Gump now monetizes those investments for the benefit of ANT Group, Nippon Steel, Altria, and PhRMA.

The bipartisan model is the Both-Sides Illusion institutionalized as business practice. Democrats and Republicans publicly oppose each other’s donors and policies; both parties’ former officials draw Akin Gump paychecks from the same client base. The political conflict that voters experience is managed, above the fray, by firms like this one. The fight is real; the infrastructure that profits from both sides is unified.

Foreign government representation reveals the firm’s function in the global donor class network. Japan, South Korea, the Maldives, Nicaragua, and (formerly) Hong Kong retain Akin Gump to navigate U.S. regulatory and legislative environments. The Adani Group — an Indian conglomerate whose chairman faced active DOJ scrutiny in 2024 — hired Akin Gump anyway. The firm’s value is access without ideology: it will represent any client that can pay the retainer, regardless of the political context.

This is what $65 million per year buys. Not policies. Not legislation. Not outcomes. Access and the architecture that makes access commercially reproducible at scale.

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