Legal community shaken by a powerful law firm’s decision to capitulate to Trump’s demands
Since President Trump’s first term, Brad S. Karp, the chairman of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, championed himself as a bulwark against what he saw as an unlawful and unpredictable presidency.
Mr. Karp, who has a long history of fund-raising for Democrats, sought to unite major law firms in “a call to arms” to fight Mr. Trump in court on issues like his administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents. He publicly said lawyers were obligated to defend the rule of law.
He hosted a “Lawyers for Biden” fund-raiser in 2023, and one of his top partners prepared Vice President Kamala Harris for her debates with Mr. Trump.
So it was not surprising that Mr. Trump targeted Paul Weiss with an executive order last week that created a potential existential threat for the firm, although the order was legally dubious and undercut fundamental principles of the justice system. In response, Mr. Karp began discussions with another big firm about presenting a unified and bipartisan front and challenging the order in court.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Karp walked into the Oval Office around 8:30 a.m., leaving behind the adversarial approach.
Now, he wanted to make a deal.
A day later, Mr. Trump announced that Mr. Karp had agreed to pledge $40 million in pro bono legal services to issues the president has championed, including a task force being run by the Justice Department aimed at combating antisemitism “and other mutually agreed projects.”
The White House said the firm had committed to stop using diversity, equity and inclusion policies. And Mr. Trump said Mr. Karp had acknowledged to him that a former partner of the firm who had worked as a prosecutor in Manhattan and had pushed for Mr. Trump to be charged criminally had committed “wrongdoing.” These assertions appear inconsistent with a copy of the statement that Mr. Karp shared with his firm.
In deciding to bend to Mr. Trump, Mr. Karp likely saved his law firm, which had $2.63 billion in revenue last year and represents corporate clients like Exxon Mobil and Apollo Global Management, from hemorrhaging clients and lawyers.
But in doing so, Mr. Karp, who had positioned himself as a spokesman and advocate for the legal profession, left other firms even more vulnerable to Mr. Trump’s retribution campaign by demonstrating that his intimidation tactics could lead even a powerhouse like Paul Weiss to make public concessions, according to interviews with lawyers at other firms and legal experts. [Continue reading…]
[T]he most extraordinary part of a deal, widely seen as humiliating for Paul, Weiss, was that Trump had not made any explicit requests of the firm, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The commitments and most notably the sacrificing of Pomerantz were offered up proactively by Karp at a White House meeting this week, the people said.
The deal marked a significant new chapter in Trump’s campaign of retribution against several top law firms he sees as having supported efforts to prosecute him during his time out of office – and how he has used the far-reaching power of the presidency to bring them to heel.
It raises the prospect that Trump and his advisers, victorious over Paul, Weiss, will feel now feel emboldened to launch similar strikes against firms that tangle with the administration. After the executive order was withdrawn, some aides privately gloated that a precedent had been set. [Continue reading…]
The agreement shocked many in the legal community, and for Rachel Cohen, an associate at another large firm — Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP — it was the final straw.
On Thursday night, Cohen fired off an email to her firm that said she was giving her two-weeks’ notice, unless leaders there agreed to a number of conditions that would, in effect, stand up to the Trump administration — including by refusing to cooperate with the targeting of DEI programs.
“This is not what I saw for my career or for my evening, but Paul Weiss’ decision to cave to the Trump administration on DEI, representation and staffing has forced my hand,” Cohen wrote in her firmwide email, which went viral on social media after she shared it publicly. “We do not have time. It is now or it is never, and if it is never, I will not continue to work here.” [Continue reading…]