America’s most powerful law firms are racing to safeguard their businesses from Donald Trump’s wrath, after attempts to rally the industry and fight in unison were undermined by the surrender of Paul Weiss.
Firm leaders scrambled on Monday to reassure major clients that the White House’s animosity would not impair their ability to represent them effectively. Legal practices of all sizes were “scared to death” of being next in line, said one senior lawyer who had spoken to top partners at several firms.
“Everybody has to engage an outside counsel for that, and everybody has to come up with a PR statement on it,” said a top Wall Street lawyer. “It’s an anxiety that’s real”.
Over the past few weeks, Trump has issued executive orders targeting law Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss as well as a directive against Washington-based Covington & Burling.
Though Paul Weiss handles megadeals and complex litigation, it has a storied history of supporting progressive causes. Its partnership ranks are stocked with former Democratic officials and it is a major fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidates, generating more than $1mn for Kamala Harris and the Democratic National Committee last year.
It bowed to Trump’s demands last week, with its chair Brad Karp insisting the survival of Paul Weiss was at risk. Meanwhile, the much smaller Perkins Coie continues to fight the order against it in court.
Fear has spread in recent days that more executive orders targeting law groups could follow, particularly for any law group with a connection to Trump’s many past legal adversaries.
Elon Musk, one of Trump’s closest allies, attacked New York’s Skadden Arps in a post on X on Sunday evening for taking a pro bono case against rightwing provocateur Dinesh D’Souza, boosting speculation that Skadden could be next.
WilmerHale, which has worked for the DNC, counted Robert Mueller, who was special counsel overseeing an investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, as a partner and represents cabinet inspectors general fired by Trump. Lawyers at WilmerHale have told allies they are also fearful of becoming a target. Still, the firm has worked to prepare Trump nominees for Senate confirmation hearings and represented cases against Democratic administrations.
Representatives for Skadden did not respond to a request for comment. Wilmer declined to comment.
Speaking at the White House on Monday, Trump claimed there were “others who want to make a settlement also”, and added that the “biggest firms . . . all came back realising that they did wrong”. Legal practices, he added, “have to behave themselves”.
The Financial Times contacted more than 30 corporate lawyers and those close to the legal community for this story, but only about a dozen agreed to speak anonymously due to concerns about retaliation from the president and his associates.
Some law groups are racing to hire Trump-aligned attorneys or lobbyists in the hope of neutralising administration attacks. Several elite groups have scraped references to progressive causes, the Democratic party or diversity, equity and inclusion programmes from their websites for fear of further scrutiny from the White House.
Karp’s decision to settle has been criticised by Paul Weiss insiders and alumni as well as the broader industry, amid fears it will embolden Trump to attack other practices and ultimately threaten the entire American legal system. More than 100 ex-Paul Weiss employees signed a letter to Karp on Monday protesting against the deal.
Robbie Kaplan, an ex-Paul Weiss partner who went on to represent E Jean Carroll in her successful cases against Trump, vowed on Monday via her firm to “stand up and fight for our clients and our principles”. Kaplan Martin — one of the few legal groups to make a public statement on the matter — added that it would remain allied with legal practices “dedicated to defending the highest ideals of our profession”.
“I don’t think they had a gun to their head. I think they had a hard choice to make,” said Elizabeth Grossman, executive director of the non-profit Common Cause Illinois, a former Paul Weiss associate who helped organise the open letter excoriating Karp’s decision to settle. “I think it was very selfish. They were thinking about their bottom line and not thinking about the rule of law and America, or how this would impact firms and people with fewer resources.”
Some of Karp’s peers at other law groups also criticised his capitulation, arguing that as a well-connected and longtime leader of one of the country’s most elite practices, he was better positioned than most to rally lawyers together against the administration’s over-reach.
Others questioned Karp’s claim in an email on Sunday that “the executive order could easily have destroyed our firm”. Several people at Paul Weiss and rivals said that given the widespread nature of the Trump attack, clients would have limited options to jump to other practices, and said the industry moved too slowly for Karp’s firm to have been in immediate danger.
Other top lawyers defended Karp, arguing the risk of losing clients was real as most corporations are trying to avoid Trump’s crosshairs. Under the executive order, the practice’s clients faced the potential loss of government contracts. The practice, which generated $2.6bn in revenue last year, counts Goldman Sachs, Apollo Global Management, Exxon and the National Football League among its broad roster of clients.
“Brad Karp is the sacrificial lamb and in the grand scheme of things it’s a good deal,” said a top corporate lawyer at a rival group. “Trump asked him to do $40mn of pro bono work on antisemitism, which is not helping get hooligans out of jail . . . It’s more the humiliation for Brad to get down on his knee and kiss the ring.”
Another rival said Karp tried to build a coalition of firms to fight but others were slow to back the cause.
“When Brad first got the got the executive order, there was this movement to sign a petition or sign an amicus brief, and have everybody show up,” the person said. “Then everybody started asking, ‘Who else is signing?’ and nobody was willing to step up, so Brad went on his own and cut a deal.”
No more than a “handful” of groups were ultimately willing to put their names to a joint brief, another person familiar with the efforts said.
“So there’s not a lot of backbone generally,” the source said. “I mean, what we’re seeing is how little backbone there is among law firms . . . at the end of the day they are capitalists.”
