American law firms are caving into Trump’s bullying – but guess who’ll pay the price?

The US legal system once stood for justice, independence and courage, says Eric Lewis – but as the president intimidates America’s biggest law companies with executive orders, what is truly shocking is quite how quickly the firms have capitulated

The late Robert Morgenthau, the New York District Attorney for more than three decades, was a great raconteur. He told a wonderful story about being sent down from New Haven in the late 1940s to interview at a newly formed law firm in New York called Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

Morgenthau’s first interview was with Lloyd Garrison, who had been the first chair of the National Labor Relations Board, the National War Labor Board and the New York Board of Education. Later, as part of the NAACP board, he represented the great African-American poet Langston Hughes when he was subpoenaed by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

“What would you like to do in the law, Mr Morgenthau?” Garrison asked. “Well, Mr Garrison, I would like to do public service.”

“No, Mr Morgenthau, you are supposed to work day and night so that I can do public service,” said Garrison. “Good day.” The interview was over.

As Morgenthau’s anecdote illustrates, public service and pro bono representation of controversial clients and cases are in the founding DNA of Paul, Weiss.

It hired the first Black lawyer at a major law firm in 1949, William Coleman, later a cabinet secretary in two Republican administrations. It numbers among its partners former homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson and former attorney general Loretta Lynch.

So when the Trump administration goes after law firms that have represented what it considers to be political enemies, issuing orders barring lawyers from certain firms from entering federal buildings, obtaining security clearances, or granting federal contracts to any of its clients, the legal profession could anticipate that these mega-profitable, mega-firms would have the integrity and the resources to fight. The order is blatantly unconstitutional, as any first-year law student would know.

But Paul, Weiss and other American mega-firms – Skadden, then Willkie Farr and Milbank – quickly caved in to this illegal and immoral pressure. Paul, Weiss agreed to a series of commitments, including to have its hiring practices audited, to contribute $40 million in legal services “to support the administration’s initiatives”, and not to use or pursue any DEI policies.

It also agreed to admit “wrongdoing” on behalf of a former partner who left the firm years before to join the New York district attorney’s investigation of Donald Trump. Skadden, Arps upped the ante to $100 million in Trump’s pet pro bono projects. Pledging to do free work for conservative causes and to forgo diversity programmes in hiring seems to provide the template for firms looking to make a deal with the Trump administration.

There is no official text of an agreement with either firm; indeed, it is not clear that there even is a written agreement, so much of the information comes from Trump’s Truth Social posts.

Firms have tried to suggest that they will be selecting the pro bono projects themselves rather than being told what to do. Is it reasonable to think that they will not choose projects that “support the administration’s initiatives” and risk swift retaliation?

Nothing prevents the Executive Orders from being reinstated if Trump decides they do not provide the appeasement on ideology and race.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of these capitulations is that they took place after a judge issued a Temporary Restraining Order against Trump’s Executive Order, finding that it was presumptively in violation of multiple constitutional rights – followed quickly by two other judges issuing similar orders on behalf of two other firms that had drawn the wrath of Trump.

A large group of law firms, including my law firm, Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, have filed an amicus brief in support of those firms that are fighting in court; but remarkably, none of the 20 largest law firms agreed to join the brief, and only three of the top 50 firms.

Big Law is keeping its head down precisely at a time when standing together would mitigate Trump’s ability to impose carnage on the law and lawyers.

Why would major law firms have given in so easily, especially when early signs were that the courts would be supportive?

Paul, Weiss’s chair Brad Karp sent a long mea culpa that gave the game away. Karp complains that other firms tried to steal Paul, Weiss’s clients and recruit Paul, Weiss lawyers. Did they succeed? Karp doesn’t say.

Nevertheless, he felt this was an “existential crisis” that “could easily have destroyed the firm”. He told Paul, Weiss that he did it for his clients and to preserve the firm’s “shared culture and values”, which “will never be subject to negotiation or compromise”.

Paul, Weiss’s revenues in 2024 were $2.6 billion, with profits per partner of $7.5 million. Skadden’s last reported revenue was $3.3 billion with profits of $5.4 million per partner. Milbank and Willkie had nearly $2 billion in revenue and similar profit numbers.

What would have happened if some clients or lawyers left and revenues dropped for a year or two, or partners made only $4 or $5 million per head – or imagine the horror, even less?

Would Karp’s much-lauded Paul, Weiss community have all abandoned ship for some other culture or set of values? Would their clients have said, it’s been nice having your world-class representation, but if Donald Trump is mad at you, we don’t want you to do our deals or litigate our cases?

Paul, Weiss and the other firms’ self-serving statements are true if narrowly interpreted to say: “We are nothing more than a profit-maximising business who do some pro bono on the side to keep our associates happy and do some virtue signalling to the law schools and the bar.”

The real subtext here is that these firms were willing to take no economic risk, and we think our clients would rather have lawyers with no backbone than lawyers who would fight – even when it looks like they are winning. We are afraid our lawyers’ commitment to us is only as deep as our next year’s results. Our culture, like the president’s, is purely transactional.

Karp claims he did what any smart lawyer does in high-stakes, “bet-the-company” litigation – settle. But not everything can or should be settled.

The Executive Order issued by the Trump administration was not just a business problem for Paul, Weiss and those following its lead. It is a dagger in the heart of the justice system and the rule of law.

It is an early salvo in a new McCarthyism, designed to intimidate the entire legal profession and to coerce admissions of wrongdoing by lawyers doing exactly what they are supposed to do.

Paul, Weiss and the others had the resources to fight and the obligation to do so; that is what other firms have done and gotten preliminary relief. They have given in quickly to bullying that was deeply wrong, and no doubt will lead to more bullying, less taking on of unpopular causes, less diversity in the profession, and more forced, false confessions of “wrongdoing” for doing what is in the best traditions of the profession.

This is “anticipatory obedience” – not by people who are weak, but by people who are strong. It will happen again to new targets, and these firms have made the path that much easier and the prospects for the profession and the rule of law that much more perilous.

Eric Lewis is chair of the international litigation firm Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, and is a leading international human rights lawyer. He is also on the board of directors of The Independent. His book on Guantanamo will be published by Cambridge University Press