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The law firms that capitulated to Trump are finally having to make good on their deal with the devil.
Back in March, when Trump first began to issue executive orders punishing law firms for associating with his personal enemies, it is likely that some of the firms yet to be targeted thought that they could avoid a similar fate. That’s probably what motivated 11 of the most prominent law firms in the country to seek out Trump and make deals with him despite the PR backlash that they suffered for doing so.
But for 10 of these 11 firms, these deals were preemptive — they were trying to stop something that hadn’t yet happened — which meant the deals they entered into were vague to the point of being nonsensical.
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For example, when Congress pressed the firms for the details, one of them (Milbank) just told Congress to go look at “an internal email to firm personnel” that had been reprinted in a legal industry trade magazine behind a paywall — not exactly the response of a confident party. Another firm (A&O Shearman) quite literally told Congress that their entire deal consisted of what Trump had posted on social media — hardly a model of lawyerly thoroughness.
Presumably, the capitulating firms were hoping that these deals would prevent the same revocation of security clearances and cancellation of federal contracts that Trump had already leveled at other firms. But none of that was included in the vague contents of the deals, leaving it entirely unclear what these law firms were getting out of exchange.
What was clearer was what Trump was getting out of it: namely, an open-ended promise from the capitulating law firms to do away with their DEI initiatives and devote hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono services (aka services free of charge) to causes of his choosing.
In short: 11 of the most powerful and supposedly capable law firms in the country all made deals with Trump to do exactly what he wanted in exchange for almost nothing at all.
Submitting without a fight
These firms seemed to think that the vagueness of these deals was the very thing that would protect them.
For instance, the firm Simpson Thacher tried to tell Congress that the deal “does not dictate or restrict what pro bono matters we will take on moving forward,” while the firm Latham & Watkins said it “maintains its complete independence as to the clients and matters the firm takes on.” And they stuck to this line despite the entire free-thinking public pointing out that the vagueness was precisely what would allow Trump to use the tremendous resources of these firms to do whatever he wanted — and despite Trump himself explicitly saying that he was going to use these firms to defend police officers accused of misconduct and help him in his ongoing trade war.
Now, to no one’s surprise except their own, it looks like the capitulating firms are finally having to hold up their end of the bargain.
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