Politico reports:

One after another, a parade of the wealthiest and most elite institutions in American life since last November have found themselves confronted by unprecedented demands from President Donald Trump and his team of retribution-seekers.

One after another, these establishment pillars have met these demands with the same response: capitulation and compliance.

The details are varied but two themes are consistent. The first is an effort — far more organized and disciplined than any precedent from Trump’s first term — to bring institutions who have earned the president’s ire to heel. The second theme is even more surprising: The swiftness with which supposedly powerful and supposedly independent institutions have responded — with something akin to the trembling acquiescence of a child surrendering his lunch money to a big kid on the morning walk to school.

Cumulatively, the cases represent an astonishing new chapter in the history of the American establishment: The Great Grovel.

Prestigious law firms have cowered at his threats to tank their business; Paul, Weiss, which fought against Trump in his first term, pledged $40 million in pro bono legal services to issues Trump has supported. And Skadden Arps, one of the largest law firms in the world, reached a deal with Trump to provide $100 million in free legal work to administration-friendly causes — before Trump had taken any action against them.

One of the country’s most storied news networks, ABC News, settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump for $15 million that will go to his future presidential library, and another, CBS News, appears poised to settle for millions more. The Washington Post and the LA Times, both legacy papers owned by Trump-friendly billionaires, have adjusted the content of their editorial pages in ways that pleased the White House. And Columbia University, alma mater to Alexander Hamilton, agreed to nine policy changes in an effort to unfreeze $400 million in federal funding. Other universities hired Republican lobbyists to stay on the president’s good side.

A team of POLITICO reporters in recent days set out to illuminate the common threads between these diverse episodes. They interviewed key figures at institutions who have been targeted, as well as people in and around Trump’s circle. Here are four conclusions: [Continue reading…]

Steven Harper writes:

1,613.

That’s how many words Brad Karp, chairman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison LLP, used in his March 23 memo defending his firm’s capitulation to U.S. President Donald Trump.

One would have been enough: greed.

Observers have been shocked and puzzled at Paul Weiss’ refusal to fight Trump’s unconstitutional order aimed at destroying the firm. But its decision was a culminating event in Big Law’s transformation from a noble profession to a collection of profit-maximizing businesses.

The Lawyer Bubble: a Profession in Crisis documents that transformation. It’s based on my 30-year career as a litigator in Big Law—a select group of the nation’s largest and most lucrative law firms. The vast majority share the same goal: maximizing equity partners’ current income. A few metrics—size, growth, revenues, billable hours, leverage, profits per partner—have become the definitive measures of a firm’s success.

By those criteria, Paul Weiss has been wildly successful. In 2024, the firm’s revenues exceeded $2.6 billion and its average profits per equity partner were more than $7.5 million.

Karp addressed his memo to the “Paul Weiss Community” of more than 1,000 lawyers. But the real players at any Big Law firm are the equity partners. As of September 2024, Paul Weiss had 212.

At most firms, a small subset of that group controls clients that bring in the most business. Those equity partners run the place, set the culture, and get the largest share of the profits pie. On average, the highest-paid equity partners in a Big Law firm earn 10 times more than their lowest-paid equity-partner colleagues.

From an economic perspective, it’s important to run any large institution efficiently. But most Big Law firm leaders have become so obsessed with the metrics of their business model that they have forgotten why they went to law school in the first place.

Practicing law is not just maximizing revenues and minimizing costs. But the Big Law business model values only what it can measure. And there’s no metric for defending the Constitution, preserving democracy, or upholding the rule of law. [Continue reading…]