FILE – Alina Habba, a former defense lawyer for President Donald Trump, shown March 24, 2025, outside the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File).
When a former employee of a Donald Trump-owned golf club filed a lawsuit in 2023 accusing Alina Habba of tricking her into signing a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) to bury a workplace sexual harassment case, Habba responded, "I always conduct myself ethically and acted no differently in this circumstance."
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics (OAE) said she "should be disciplined."
The complaint, first obtained and reported by the Washington Sun, recounted the case of Alice Bianco, a former server at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster who alleged she was repeatedly harassed by food and beverage manager Pavel Melichar.
Though the lawsuit Bianco filed did not name Habba as a defendant, it claimed she posed as a "neutral friend" who could "help" the then-21-year-old and encouraged her to fire her lawyer — to facilitate a lowball $15,000 settlement and NDA that her firm drafted — and then effectively ghosted her once the job was done.
Bianco's attorney Nancy Erika Smith not only filed a disciplinary grievance against Habba, but also brought a lawsuit to void the NDA, claiming fraudulent inducement. That case later settled for $400,000.
On Tuesday, OAE Director Johanna Barba Jones accused Habba of "engag[ing] in a concurrent conflict of interest by undertaking the representation of Bianco when there was a significant risk that Respondent's representation of Bianco would be materially limited by Respondent's personal interests."
In addition, the complaint said, Habba "did not inform the parties that she was not representing them and Respondent knew or reasonably should have known that Bianco did not understand the lawyer's role and Respondent failed to explain the difference between the lawyer's role as a third-party neutral and a lawyer's role as one who represents a client."
Smith had alleged that Habba "acted under a secret agreement" with President Donald Trump. And as of March 2023, it appeared she had succeeded in at least confirming his involvement.
"In a written submission to the OAE, dated March 15, 2023, Respondent [Habba], through counsel Thomas F. Quinn, Esq., stated that Trump 'asked her to handle an internal employee dispute for the club which she successfully did,'" a footnote said.
But then Habba and Quinn "subsequently disavowed the statement, three years after submitting it to the OAE, characterizing it as an error by counsel which Respondent and others had purportedly not read prior to its submission."
"The OAE is not able to prove to the high standard of clear and convincing evidence that either the statement in the letter or Respondent's subsequent disavowals are intentional misrepresentations," the complaint said, while still taking note of Habba's "cavalier attitude toward the disciplinary process."
"The OAE views that conduct in aggravation," the footnote went on. "Moreover, while the OAE has significant concerns as to the veracity of Respondent's factual recitation, the OAE does not have clear and convincing evidence to substantiate Grievant's allegation that Habba acted under a secret agreement with Mr. Trump individually or with the Trump Organization."
The disciplinary charges add to legal problems facing the attorney now known as Alina Habba Mildon, a former Trump attorney inside and outside of government.
Just this week, the New York Times reported that she lost a $50 million contract to work for a Venezuelan billionaire. Trump openly said the deal was "totally obnoxious and outrageous" as questions swirled about whether his pardon of Julio Herrera Velutini in a bribery case was connected to the lucrative contract.
Habba has claimed "[a]ny insinuation that my employment [had] anything to do with securing a pardon is false."
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.