Trump Deals Show Big Law Long Ago Chose Business Over Profession

Welcome back to the Big Law Business column. I’m Roy Strom, and today we look at the cultural cost of law firms’ deals with the president. Sign up for Business & Practice, a free morning newsletter from Bloomberg Law.

My last column was proven wrong mere hours after publication. Big Law firms can’t negotiate their way out of President Donald Trump’s ire, I wrote on March 20.

Paul Weiss struck the first deal with Trump the same day. Three more of the country’s largest, wealthiest law firms, Skadden, Willkie, and Milbank have since followed that lead. Together, they’ve promised to provide a collective $340 million worth of pro bono efforts to causes agreed upon by the president and the firms, among other concessions.

Those firms are getting significant backlash. A few associates who’ve quit Skadden publicly rebuked the firm on their way out the door. A broader sign of Big Law capitulation is likely to come when top firms are largely absent from an amicus brief supporting Perkins Coie in its fight against a Trump executive order. That brief is expected to include signatures from hundreds of smaller law firms, lawyers, and law professors—but few of the very largest law firms.

Part of my mistake the last time out was expecting firm leaders to weigh the cultural cost of these deals more heavily. I wrote:

Capitulation would carry major risks to a firm’s culture. Associates are already clamoring for leaders to speak out forcefully against Trump’s attacks.

Why has the cost to firm culture been discounted by some of Big Law’s biggest players? And what will the price ultimately prove to be?

To answer those questions, I turned to Bill Henderson, a law professor at Indiana University. Something he said then when we spoke two years ago seems particularly relevant today: Too many lawyers are working to get rich and ignoring other important aspects of the profession.

Henderson doesn’t see specific firms paying a significant price from their decision to settle with Trump. But he believes the profession will suffer from those firms’ collective inability to stand up to an attack on lawyers’ independence.

“This is the end stages of us taking for granted our inheritance,” Henderson said.

Moneyed Interests

Law firm leaders who’ve struck deals with Trump rationalize them as choosing survival in exchange for a small sacrifice of their own independence. Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp said in an internal email that the deal avoided an executive order that could have “destroyed” his firm. Willkie’s executive committee said its proactive negotiation staved off “grave consequences.”

Karp also said the deal was in keeping with the firm’s values. Willkie’s leadership said it was in line with its “longstanding practices.” Milbank leader Scott Edelman said his firm’s commitments to Trump “are things we are happy to do anyway.”

Henderson, who signed the Perkins Coie amicus brief, has a broader critique of law firms: He believes they’ve helped to usher in an era of extreme wealth inequality that gave rise to popular dissatisfaction with government. The new deals with Trump are stark examples of firms choosing their business interests over upholding the profession’s ideals, he said.

“Law firms represent moneyed interests, so there is an inherent conflict here,” Henderson told me. “They are in bed making a good living with these clients, and there are social consequences to that. And then one day they have to wake up to defend the rule of law?”

“The longer a country goes with peace and stability, the more special interests strangle it and make it incapable of making decisions for the collective good. And that’s where we are now,” Henderson said. “It’s total gridlock because there are so many special interests that are gumming up the works. And lawyers are in the business of gumming up those works; that is what we do.”

Partners at the three firms who’ve settled with Trump earn, on average, twice as much as the three firms who’ve chosen to fight executive orders targeting them in court.

In 2023, Skadden, Paul Weiss, Willkie and Milbank had a combined 883 equity partners, who earned $5.2 million on average in profits, according to data from The American Lawyer. WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, and Jenner & Block had 545 combined equity partners, earning about $2.5 million on average.

“You cannot countenance kicking out the independence of the profession just to keep continuing to make a high living,” Henderson said.

Henderson acknowledged the collective inaction facing the largest law firms. They are afraid to sign the Perkins Coie amicus brief or otherwise defend themselves unless their peers do the same. But there’s no easy mechanism to mobilize the group, he said.

Still, he said it’s important for lawyers to speak out. And he believes the current environment will have some modest cultural costs for law firms that struck deals. It is likely to galvanize some lawyers—younger ones, especially—toward standing up for the profession’s ideals rather than its business objectives, he said.

“We do take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. This is clearly antithetical to that,” he said. “And you know what the problem is? It’s costly. And we’re not used to paying a price for our freedom. And we’re not used to paying the price for constitutional democracy. And we’ve deferred payment.”

Henderson developed part of his critique of today’s law firms based on the work of Stanford Law professor emeritus Robert Gordon, who studied lawyers in the Gilded Age. Some of them left private practice to fight against policies that led to vast wealth.

Gordon told me he also expects some partners will resign or defect from firms who struck deals with the administration, even if it hasn’t happened yet.

Those firms have argued that the concessions they made to Trump were in keeping with things they already do, like pro bono work for groups fighting antisemitism. But Gordon said the concessions represent capitulating to “dominance displays” demanded by the government.

“A lot of people say, ‘Look, law firms sold out to business long ago.’ And there is some truth to that,” Gordon said. “But this is ratcheting it up another level. This is agreeing to particular demands of government to do particular deals. And that is an escalation, and it’s dangerous.”

Worth Your Time

On Pro Bono: A Heritage Foundation-linked group is seeking to leverage President Donald Trump’s executive actions against law firms to get free legal help for conservative causes, Emily Birnbaum writes.

On M&A: Kirkland & Ellis topped the list of M&A advisers in the first quarter, according to Bloomberg Law’s league tables.

On Bankruptcy: A Johnson & Johnson unit’s latest dismissal from the bankruptcy court system shows how complex voting issues and overly broad litigation shields can derail momentum when trying to resolve mass tort liability, James Nani reports.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for reading and please send me your thoughts, critiques, and tips.