Some lawyers said the deal was driven by profit. Others said it was enabling autocracy.
All over the legal world, lawyers on Friday were talking about the deal that Paul Weiss, one of the nation’s most prominent law firms, made with President Donald Trump to escape an executive order that would have prevented it from representing many clients before the federal government. To avoid the hit to its business, the firm agreed to do $40 million worth of pro bono work for causes favored by the White House.
It was a striking development in the White House’s broad retribution campaign against big law firms that represented lawyers or prosecutors in the criminal cases against Trump before the 2024 election.
Paul Weiss’ move was a particular point of contention because of the firm’s standing in the legal community. The firm has long been dominated by Democrats and prided itself in being at the forefront of fights against the government for civil rights.
“They have all the resources they need to fight an unlawful order,” said John Moscow, who was a top prosecutor at the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “The example they are setting is to surrender to unlawful orders rather than fight them in court.”
Lawyers at firms large and small took to social media to denounce the firm.
Leslie Levin, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, said she was “deeply disappointed” the firm had struck a deal with Trump. Many large firms, she said, are struggling with how to respond to pressure from the Trump administration. But basing decisions on concern about harm to their business goes against key tenets of the legal profession, she said.
“Lawyers are supposed to stand up to the government when there’s an abuse of power, and a firm like Paul Weiss has the capacity to do that,” Levin said.
On Thursday, Trump said he had reached a deal with Brad Karp, the chair of Paul Weiss, to drop the executive order he issued against the firm. The order would have restricted the firm’s security clearance — something that is often needed to review government contracts for corporate clients — and barred its lawyers from federal buildings.
In exchange, the firm agreed to represent clients no matter their political affiliation and do $40 million worth of pro bono work on causes that the Trump administration supports, such as fighting antisemitism.