For the law firm leaders who made agreements with the Trump administration to avoid punitive executive orders targeting their firms, the decision may have seemed like a prudent way to save their businesses from a profit-killing war with the White House.
But the choice appears to be backfiring with certain corporate clients, lawyers at the firms and international regulators. Major corporations like Microsoft and McDonald’s have dropped firms from high-profile cases or scaled back their relationships. A few well-known partners have exited. And bar associations in Europe are considering whether the firms may have violated their professional obligations.
In-house lawyers have openly questioned the firms’ willingness to defend the rule of law and to guard their clients in the face of government opposition. Simply put, if a law firm bows to pressure from the administration when its own interests are threatened, will it do so when acting on behalf of a client? Some are also concerned that the firms’ agreements to take on pro bono causes championed by the Trump administration will lead to potential conflicts of interest.
At the same time, the handful of major law firms that chose to fight back have quickly won injunctions halting Trump’s orders. They argued that Trump’s actions were a blatant case of executive overreach that violated their constitutional rights. And as a result of their steadfastness, some clients are rewarding them with additional work.
Corporate Concerns
Nine firms reached deals with Trump, including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft; Milbank; Kirkland & Ellis; Allen Overy Shearman & Sterling; Latham & Watkins; and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
On June 1, The Wall Street Journal reported that at least 11 major corporations are “moving work away” from firms that signed deals with Trump. This aligns with earlier reports by other outlets that GCs are quietly dropping or reducing their reliance on those firms. One energy company general counsel interviewed by Law.com in May said he is no longer using two of the firms that settled and that he is aware of more than a dozen companies seeking new outside counsel.
Several general counsel interviewed by the Journal said the issue comes down to one of trust. If firms aren’t willing to stand up for themselves against Trump or fail to take a hard line against pressure from the White House, one GC said, “they don’t have any line at all.”
In response, the firms have argued that nothing in the deals they have made will hinder their ability to effectively and zealously represent clients. And they are scrambling to shore up relationships. In April, Microsoft scrubbed Latham from its list of preferred outside legal providers, and the firm won its way back on the list only after providing “strong assurances” that the deal it had struck would not create “potential conflict of interest issues,” the Journal said.
Even so, companies have made changes to their litigation teams in a few high-profile cases involving firms that made deals. The New York Times reported in May that Microsoft had dropped Simpson Thacher as counsel in a Delaware Court of Chancery case involving the company’s 2023 acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard. While Microsoft has said it continues to work with Simpson Thacher, the move was seen as a clear indication the company was pushing back at firms that had made deals.
In a recent court filing, McDonald’s said Paul Weiss partner Loretta Lynch, a former attorney general under President Barack Obama, was withdrawing as the fast-food chain’s counsel in a major discrimination case. Lynch “had been involved with the case for several years,” the Journal reported, noting that “it is unusual for companies to shake up representation close to trial.”
Supportive Stance
Four firms—Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey—chose to battle the executive orders. Perkins, WilmerHale and Jenner have won permanent injunctions against the administration, and Susman is seeking one.
The firms have argued the orders are designed to retaliate against them for representing clients opposed to the administration and its allies and, in the words of Jenner, are aimed at forcing firms to “cease certain representations adverse to the government and renounce the administration’s critics—or suffer the consequences.”
Fighting back has helped burnish the firms’ reputations among some in-house counsel. In the Activision Blizzard case, for instance, Microsoft replaced Simpson Thacher with Jenner & Block. And according to the Journal, shortly after meeting with Latham about its decision to make a deal, Morgan Stanley’s GC and other in-house lawyers made it clear that the financial services giant was looking to do business with firms that had not signed agreements with Trump.
One technology company GC confirmed to Law.com in May that in-house counsel are looking for ways to “get more work” to firms that have fought back in court. And that sentiment has been underlined by in-house lawyers at recent legal industry events. At one luncheon in New York, a top in-house lawyer at the hedge fund Citadel told law firm leaders the company likes to work with law firms “that aren’t afraid of a fight,” according to an account of the meeting by the Journal.
Prominent Exits
For their part, the nine firms that made deals said they believed the executive orders posed an overwhelming threat to their businesses and their clients. In a widely distributed firmwide email sent on March 23, Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp said the firm—the first to make a deal with Trump—faced an “existential crisis” and the executive order targeting it “could easily have destroyed” the firm.
“It brought the full weight of the government down on our firm, our people, and our clients,” Karp wrote. “In particular, it threatened our clients with the loss of their government contracts, and the loss of access to the government, if they continued to use the firm as their lawyers.”
That position, however, has elicited little sympathy with some in-house attorneys. The Journal reported that the day after the deal was announced a GC at a Women’s General Counsel Network event in Washington, D.C., stood up and said her company was looking to pull its work from Paul Weiss. “The lawyer received thunderous applause,” the newspaper said.
Some associates, partners and job candidates are also disenchanted. A number of associates have publicly resigned from firms, and prospective hires have turned down positions in the wake of the deals, according to news reports.
The partner exits have been picking up as well. In May, two Cadwalader litigation partners exited for Foley & Lardner, a decision influenced, according to press accounts, by their former firm’s deal with the administration.
But the biggest impact has been at Paul Weiss, where eight partners have left in recent weeks. In May, four prominent litigators—Karen Dunn, Bill Isaacson, Jessica Phillips and Jeannie Rhee—departed to form their own litigation boutique. Dunn is a prominent Democratic lawyer who helped prepare Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential debate. A fifth litigation partner, Kyle Smith, jumped to the new firm on June 3, and two other partners—Melissa Zappala and Rush Atkinson—did so a few days later.
The eighth partner, Damian Williams, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, left Paul Weiss on June 6, just six months after joining the firm. Williams joined Jenner & Block.
International Pushback
Trump’s executive orders suspended lawyers’ security clearances, blocked access to government buildings, prevented the government from hiring law firm employees and required federal agencies to terminate contracts with the firms. Trump also accused the firms of using diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs to illegally discriminate against employees and launched a regulatory probe into hiring practices at several major firms.
In their deals with Trump, the nine firms committed to “merit-based hiring, promotion and retention,” and to give “fair and equal consideration” to job candidates regardless of political ideology. They also made commitments to pro bono efforts on behalf of veterans and public servants, fighting antisemitism and ensuring fairness in the justice system.
Together, the firms pledged nearly $1 billion in free legal work to administration-backed causes. In the weeks since the agreements were signed, Trump has touted a more sweeping interpretation of the agreements, suggesting he may use the firms to assist the coal industry with leasing on public lands and to help him defend his tariff proposals.
Corporate clients, according to news reports, have raised concerns that broad terms could trigger potential conflicts. And bar associations in Europe have also expressed alarm, a concern for global firms with a significant presence on the continent. In May, Law.com reported that the Dutch Bar Association and the German Bar Association had both issued warnings that the agreements could violate rules around lawyer independence.
The German Bar issued a position paper questioning whether the deals “cast doubt on the respective law firm’s independence from the government.” The paper quotes Germany’s Federal Code for Lawyers, which requires lawyers to maintain independence from the state and “avoid any contractual or other binding agreements that would compromise their freedom to act solely in the interest of their client.”
“Against this background,” the bar report said, “it appears possible and perhaps even probable that the respective law firms have violated the duty of independence by concluding these deals.”
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David L. Brown is a legal affairs writer and consultant, who has served as head of editorial at ALM Media, editor-in-chief of The National Law Journal and Legal Times and executive editor of The American Lawyer. He consults on thought leadership strategy and creates in-depth content for legal industry clients and works closely with Best Law Firms as senior content consultant.
