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Politico
29-06-2025
- Business
- Politico
Inside the fallout at Paul, Weiss after the firm's deal with Trump
Three months ago, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was under attack. The global law firm had just become the target of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump directing the firm and its clients to be cut off from government contracts, and for firm lawyers to lose their security clearances and be restricted from entering government buildings or dealing with federal employees. Paul, Weiss wasn't the first firm to be the focus of such an executive order, but it would go on to be the first to negotiate a deal with the White House in order to get it lifted. At the time, the firm's leader Brad Karp said he was trying to save his team from an 'existential crisis.' Since then, the firm has endured. But the decision to strike a deal has led to high-profile departures among partners and drawn condemnation from Democrats and others in the legal community. After Karp made a deal with Trump, at least 10 partners in the litigation department have resigned from the firm, including several with close ties to Democrats. A group of the departing partners have joined together to start their own firm where they will continue to represent tech giants like Meta and Google, and another has jumped ship to one of the four firms that chose to fight the administration in court. While the firms that have fought Trump have been vindicated in multiple swift rulings, Paul, Weiss has been dealing with fallout in the aftermath of the deal, according to three former attorneys and five others with knowledge of the firm granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal dynamics. 'They made a calculated decision,' said Elizabeth Grossman, executive director of government watchdog group Common Cause Illinois and a former Paul, Weiss associate who helped organize alumni opposition to the deal. 'They were thinking about their bottom line… I think what we've seen is that they made the wrong decision.' Founded 150 years ago in New York, Paul, Weiss is now one of the largest and most profitable firms in the world, with more than 1,000 lawyers in offices across North America, Europe and Asia and an annual revenue of $2.6 billion. The firm touts its pro-bono work and its lawyers were frequently involved in cases challenging controversial policies during the first Trump administration. The firm's commitment to 'not adopt, use or pursue any DEI policies' and provide the equivalent of $40 million in free legal work to 'support the administration's initiatives' would become the framework used by eight other law firms to strike similar deals committing a total of nearly $1 billion in pro bono work to causes favored by the president. Being the first firm to fold meant Paul, Weiss secured a better deal than those who came later, but it also turned the firm into a lightning rod for anger at Big Law's failure to stand up to Trump. Karp and a spokesperson for Paul, Weiss declined to comment. The first major personnel blow for Paul, Weiss came at the end of May, when co-chair of the litigation department, Karen Dunn, announced that she and three of her colleagues would be leaving to start a new litigation boutique firm. Dunn has had close ties to Democrats for years and previously worked as an associate White House counsel under former President Barack Obama. She also helped former Vice President Kamala Harris prepare for her 2024 general election debate with Trump. Leaving with Dunn was Jeannie Rhee, who previously represented former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a lawsuit dealing with her use of a private email server and worked under special counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election. During the week between Trump's order targeting Paul, Weiss and the announcement of the deal, the firm's management committee, including Dunn and Rhee, prepared to challenge the order in court, according to three of the people with knowledge of the firm. The group, led by chair of the firm's Supreme Court practice, Kannon Shanmugam, worked on a motion asking a judge to immediately halt enforcement of the order while litigation played out, but the effort was tabled in favor of making a deal, one of the people said. A second one said that in her capacity as a member of the management committee, Dunn was involved in the conversations about making a deal with the White House. That person said Karp consulted the firm's partnership in deciding whether to make a deal, and the 'vast majority' of the more than 200 partners were in favor of it at the time. Dunn began telling lawyers inside and outside the firm of her plans to leave in the days and weeks following the deal, according to one of the people. Dunn and Rhee declined to comment. Shanmugam did not respond to a request for comment. In recent weeks, five additional partners and at least eight associates, the majority of whom worked with Dunn at her previous firm and moved to Paul, Weiss around the same time as she did, have left Paul, Weiss to join Dunn and her colleagues at the fledgling firm Dunn Isaacson Rhee. Dunn and her partners have filed notices in multiple ongoing cases indicating they will continue representing big tech clients they were already representing at Paul, Weiss. 'Paul, Weiss used to be the gold standard for litigation,' said Bryson Malcolm, founder of legal recruiting firm Mosaic Search Partners. 'I think that reputation is waning.' Earlier this month, Paul, Weiss lost another recognizable name when the former chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Damian Williams, decamped to Jenner & Block, a much smaller firm by annual revenue. That firm had also been targeted by an executive order but successfully fought the administration in court instead of making a deal — something Williams seemed to allude to in the announcement of his move. 'I've seen firsthand how this firm expertly tackles the toughest cases and lives its values,' Williams said in a press release. 'I'm excited to join a team with an extraordinary depth of legal talent that doesn't shy away from hard fights — and delivers results that matter.' Williams declined to comment. Paul, Weiss has also lost one of its two former Obama Cabinet secretaries to retirement since the deal. Former Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson retired last month to take a position as co-chair of Columbia University's board of trustees. Meanwhile, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch remains at the firm. Johnson and Lynch did not respond to requests for comment. Trump's stated reasons for initially targeting the firm were the hiring of Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney's office who previously investigated Trump's hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, Rhee's work on a civil lawsuit against individuals involved with the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and an allegation that the firm was engaging in racially discriminatory hiring practices. (In a firm-wide email following the deal, Karp wrote, 'While retaining our longstanding commitment to diversity in all of its forms, we agreed that we would follow the law with respect to our employment practices.') The threat of future investigation hangs over all the firms that struck deals. Sixteen House Democrats sent letters to Paul, Weiss and the eight other deal-making firms in April, seeking details of the agreements and suggesting that they may violate state and federal criminal laws against bribery. 'We would never do anything to compromise our ability to advocate zealously on behalf of our clients, and we certainly reject any suggestion that any element of the agreement is contrary to law,' Karp wrote in a response letter obtained by POLITICO. Meanwhile, all the firms that have fought Trump's orders have so far won in court. Four federal judges have struck down Trump's executive orders aimed at firms Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey as unconstitutional. The Justice Department has not taken steps to appeal those rulings and the window of time for them to do so will soon close. Despite those legal victories, some observers caution that it may be too soon to tell if the threat to firms that fought back has truly passed. Trump's orders are no longer in effect, but federal agencies can still come up with alternative reasons to steer contracts away from disfavored firms and their clients. And companies seeking government approval for mergers may prefer to use Paul, Weiss or another deal-making firm to represent them in that process over one that fought that administration. 'If it's being done without saying that it's being done, it's super hard for courts to police,' said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who studies law and public policy. There may be more departures to come for Paul, Weiss. The nature of profit distribution at large firms gives partners an incentive to stay through the end of the fiscal year and the process of moving firms for partners is more lengthy and complicated than simply finding a new job willing to hire them. 'It's a very financially unattractive time to leave and you need several months to make the move anyway,' said a partner at a separate firm granted anonymity to speak candidly about the industry. And while top talent walks out the door, it may prove harder for Paul, Weiss to attract the next generation of lawyers. 'Students are plugged in in a way that they've never been before and they're tracking all this,' Malcolm said. 'I don't really see a situation where a student would choose Paul, Weiss over any of its peers that didn't have a similar fallout. Even if you're just thinking pragmatically and you're not really tied to the morality of it all, it's just very clear Paul, Weiss is not a safe option compared to the others.' According to numbers obtained by POLITICO, Paul, Weiss' acceptance rates for this year at their major offices including New York and Washington are in line with their typical acceptance rates over the past five years 'Ultimately we're a talent business,' said the partner at the separate firm. 'It may not be something you feel now, but it could be something you feel three or four years from now.'
Boston Globe
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
The courage of Mike Pence
But since Jan. 20, when Donald Trump took office, I'm now regularly asked why people of any party or professional or educational background aren't standing up. Advertisement Why didn't ABC stand up for journalistic independence instead of Why didn't the mega international law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison stand up for its hiring autonomy instead of agreeing Why didn't The answer is that standing up for the truth, or standing up for principle, can be a scary, self-damaging prospect. It can mean intimidation, loss of money, and legal persecution. It can mean loss of friends, death threats, and diminished job prospects. And there's no certain benefit. Advertisement As the nation is learning, it's the rare person or organization that will stand up. No matter the power. No matter the money. It's in this light that we should view the actions of Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, for refusing to overturn the results of the presidential election. He did what ABC, Paul Weiss, and Columbia University feared to do. And he did it when the stakes were even higher — the Constitution, the truth, and the peaceful transfer of power were being threatened. It's why Caroline Kennedy and Jack Schlossberg will present Pence with the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award on May 4 in Boston. From 2021 to 2024, the Republican Party needed more Mike Pences. They didn't emerge. As a result, the moral character of the party has been damaged, perhaps irrevocably. Now, in 2025, the whole country needs more Mike Pences before the moral character of the United States is damaged by acts that would have been unthinkable in previous presidential administrations: betraying allies and cozying up to brutal dictators, pardoning petty criminals, brazenly defying federal courts, and ignoring constitutional rights. The day after I lost my 2024 reelection in Arizona's Republican primary primary for Maricopa County recorder, I received a call from Pence, who encouraged me to keep standing up for the truth and for the Constitution. It meant more to me than any other call because whatever he was asking me to do, whatever he was asking me to sacrifice, and whatever courage he was asking me to show, he'd already done on a much larger scale. Advertisement Just as Pence encouraged me to 'stay in the fight,' I am hopeful that this year's Profile in Courage can inspire this much-needed type of courage. The courage of Mike Pence.
New York Times
16-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Law Firms Made Deals With Trump. Now He Wants More From Them.
When some of the nation's biggest law firms agreed to deals with President Trump, the terms appeared straightforward: In return for escaping the full force of his retribution campaign, the firms would do some free legal work on behalf of largely uncontroversial causes like helping veterans. Mr. Trump, it turns out, has a far more expansive view of what those firms can be called on to do. Over the last week, he has suggested that the firms will be drafted into helping him negotiate trade deals. He has mused about having them help with his goal of reviving the coal industry. And he has hinted that he sees the promises of nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services that he has extracted from the elite law firms — including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher — as a legal war chest to be used as he wishes. 'Have you noticed that lots of law firms have been signing up with Trump: $100 million, another $100 million for damages that they've done,' Mr. Trump said at an event last week with coal miners, without specifying what he meant by damages. None of the firms have acknowledged any wrongdoing. They were targeted with punitive executive orders or implicit threats for representing or aiding Mr. Trump's political foes or employing people he sees as having used the legal system to come after him. The deals have been widely criticized, as they are seen by many in the legal community as unconstitutional and undemocratic. Four firms whom Mr. Trump leveled executive orders against have fought them in court, all quickly receiving rulings from federal judges who temporarily halted them. But now that nine firms have agreed to deals and committed to nearly $1 billion worth of pro bono legal work, some Trump advisers have started having discussions about a range of options for what the firms' lawyers can be deployed to work on, according to two people briefed on the matter. That work could include sending the lawyers to help Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency or deploying them to aid the Justice Department, they said. White House officials believe that some of the pro bono legal work could even be used toward representing Mr. Trump or his allies if they became ensnared in investigations, according to the two people. Asked about what Mr. Trump would seek from the firms, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said the firms had 'committed to hundreds of millions in pro bono work and other free legal services' that should be put to the 'best uses' for the American people. 'These agreements are historic, unprecedented and fully binding,' she said. 'The president and his administration fully expect the law firms to live up to their commitments, and have received no indication otherwise.' The agreements, which Mr. Trump announced on his social media site, appear to leave room for interpretation. It is unclear whether the firms even signed formal written deals spelling out the terms, or if they were essentially handshake agreements. It is also not clear how hard and how far Mr. Trump will push the notion that those deals now leave many of the nation's biggest, most prestigious and best-resourced firms at his beck and call. There is no indication yet that he has sought to deploy any of them on a particular issue. But the emerging gap between what the firms initially thought they agreed to and what Mr. Trump says they can be used for shows how the deals did little to insulate them from his whims. Further demands on the firms from Mr. Trump could raise the potential for conflicts with paying clients and could further fuel internal dissension. 'They thought they made one-shot deals which they would fulfill,' said Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School who was an author of a paper that called executive orders targeting the firms unconstitutional retaliatory measures. 'But the administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude.' All nine firms that reached deals with Mr. Trump declined to comment or did not respond. The other firms that made deals include Latham & Watkins; Milbank; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; A & O Shearman; Kirkland & Ellis; and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. One lawyer directly involved in some of the agreements said he feared that Mr. Trump's comments could lead to the deals unraveling. Leaders of some of the firms have seen Mr. Trump's comments in recent days and are just hoping that Mr. Trump will not follow through and press them to take on work on behalf of the administration, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter. Although judges have temporarily barred executive orders issued by Mr. Trump against four firms from going into effect, raising doubts about their constitutionality, corporate lawyers at Paul Weiss were so fearful of simply appearing at odds with the administration that they pushed the firm to settle instead of file a lawsuit. If the firms that made deals rebuffed new demands from Mr. Trump, that would force the president to decide whether he believed that the firms were in violation of the agreement and whether to level new executive orders against them. Mr. Trump was first to announce all of the arrangements on his terms, on his social media platform Truth Social. The firms said little publicly, and communicated only over internal firm emails what their thinking about the terms of the agreement had been. The uncertainty over the existence of formal contracts has left unclear what if any enforcement mechanisms there might be. At Paul Weiss and Skadden, some lawyers are concerned that a showdown with the White House is inevitable. If they are pushed to provide legal work beyond what they agreed to, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters, some lawyers are expected to quit. Two people said that Brad Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss, was very clear with the firm's top leadership that his agreement with Mr. Trump was essentially a codification of work that Paul Weiss already does, a message echoed by leaders of other firms about their agreements. Mr. Karp did suggest to the White House, according to two people briefed on the matter, that Paul Weiss do work for a potential U.S. sovereign wealth fund. In internal communications with their employees, several of the settling firms said the pro bono commitments they agreed to are consistent with free legal services they already provide. In a firmwide email, leaders at Kirkland emphasized that the 'firm will continue to determine which matters we take on both pro bono and otherwise — consistent with our nonpartisan mind-set,' according to a copy of the message reviewed by The New York Times. In an email to its staff, A & O Shearman, which also reached a deal with the White House last week, said the firm was 'completely free to choose whether or not we wish to work on any particular pro bono matter.' Jeremy London, an executive partner at Skadden, struck a similar tone in explaining the deal in a firmwide email, saying that the firm had agreed to commit $100 million of pro bono work that 'the president and Skadden both support,' among others, according to the email reviewed by The Times. Some lawyers at Skadden clung to that line in Mr. London's email, believing that it could ultimately protect the firm from being strong-armed into doing certain work, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. As these law firms navigate the shifting terms of their agreements with Mr. Trump, they are also contending with criticism from within. Much of the loudest disapproval has come from some of the associates, typically younger lawyers who do not have any sway in the firm's decision-making but often do the bulk of the essential work. Within days of the deals being announced at Skadden, Paul Weiss, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Latham & Watkins and Kirkland, a few quit their jobs, posting their resignations on LinkedIn. Any work for the administration that gets into policy positions could create conflicts with a firm's big corporate clients — especially if those clients' interests are at odds with those of the administration. A group of legal ethics experts made this very point in a so-called amicus brief filed on Friday in support of two law firms that opted to take the Trump administration to court after being hit with an executive order. And if the administration seeks to require any of the firms to do work for the Justice Department, those that have cases before the department could lose clients that are under federal investigation. 'A firm that can survive only by staying in the president's good graces,' the professors wrote in their amicus brief, 'has incentives that conflict with its lawyers' stringent fiduciary duties to remain loyal to the interests of their clients, exercise independent judgment, and be truthful and candid in all dealings with the courts.'
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Law firm Paul Weiss's pro bono leader resigns after Trump deal
By Nate Raymond BOSTON (Reuters) - The head of the pro bono practice at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison said on Wednesday he was resigning from the Wall Street law firm just weeks after it struck a deal with Republican U.S. President Donald Trump to escape an executive order imperiling its business. Steven Banks, the former commissioner of New York City's social services agency, in a statement said he was leaving Paul Weiss to turn his attention to representing the Coalition for the Homeless with the Legal Aid Society. His resignation came after Paul Weiss on March 20 reached a deal with the White House for Trump to lift an executive order that targeted the firm. The deal included a requirement for the firm to donate $40 million in free legal work, or pro bono services, to support mutually agreed-upon projects. Banks, 68, said his "time to make a difference as a lawyer is narrowing." "This has been weighing on me since the November election," Banks said. "At this historical moment, I know that I belong back on the front lines fighting for the things that I have believed in since I first walked in the door of the Legal Aid Society as a staff attorney in 1981." The New York Times first reported the news. Banks who joined the firm in 2022 after working in former Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration. Before that, he had led the Legal Aid Society, a legal aid organization. Paul Weiss thanked Banks for his service. "We remain committed to providing impactful pro bono legal assistance to individuals and organizations in need," the firm said. Paul Weiss is among several law firms with ties to attorneys who have investigated Trump or been involved in challenges to his policies that have been targeted with executive orders aimed at restricting their business with the federal government. Three other law firms have reached deals like that of Paul Weiss, with pledges to similarly donate legal services. Trump at an event on Tuesday suggested that he may use some of those firms to help the coal industry with leasing and in negotiations over tariffs. Democrats and other lawyers have assailed law firms for striking such deals rather than fighting them in court, as three other firms are doing. Paul Weiss's deal also called for it to not to engage in illegal diversity-related employment practices.
Reuters
10-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Law firm Paul Weiss's pro bono leader resigns after Trump deal
BOSTON, April 9 (Reuters) - The head of the pro bono practice at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison said on Wednesday he was resigning from the Wall Street law firm just weeks after it struck a deal with Republican U.S. President Donald Trump to escape an executive order imperiling its business. Steven Banks, the former commissioner of New York City's social services agency, in a statement said he was leaving Paul Weiss to turn his attention to representing the Coalition for the Homeless with the Legal Aid Society. His resignation came after Paul Weiss on March 20 reached a deal with the White House for Trump to lift an executive order that targeted the firm. The deal included a requirement for the firm to donate $40 million in free legal work, or pro bono services, to support mutually agreed-upon projects. Banks, 68, said his "time to make a difference as a lawyer is narrowing." "This has been weighing on me since the November election," Banks said. "At this historical moment, I know that I belong back on the front lines fighting for the things that I have believed in since I first walked in the door of the Legal Aid Society as a staff attorney in 1981." The New York Times first reported the news. Banks who joined the firm in 2022 after working in former Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration. Before that, he had led the Legal Aid Society, a legal aid organization. Paul Weiss thanked Banks for his service. "We remain committed to providing impactful pro bono legal assistance to individuals and organizations in need," the firm said. Paul Weiss is among several law firms with ties to attorneys who have investigated Trump or been involved in challenges to his policies that have been targeted with executive orders aimed at restricting their business with the federal government. Three other law firms have reached deals like that of Paul Weiss, with pledges to similarly donate legal services. Trump at an event on Tuesday suggested that he may use some of those firms to help the coal industry with leasing and in negotiations over tariffs. Democrats and other lawyers have assailed law firms for striking such deals rather than fighting them in court, as three other firms are doing. Paul Weiss's deal also called for it to not to engage in illegal diversity-related employment practices.
