Future
Trump, Big Law, and an ‘Existential Crisis’
The president’s clash with some of the nation’s biggest law firms appears to be far from over, potentially splintering the legal community even further.
Paul, Weiss has worked hard to smooth over relations with the Trump administration and to reassure staff members that it was right in doing so.Credit…Andrew Kelly/Reuters
What’s the next step for Big Law?
President Trump’s campaign to get business leaders to play by his rules has sowed confusion and outright concern in C-suites amid escalating attacks on corporate America. The case of Paul, Weiss could stand as Exhibit A.
The powerful firm has smoothed things over with the White House for now. But the question remains: What has it gained?
The latest: Brad Karp, the firm’s chairman and a prominent Democratic donor, sent a memo to employees on Sunday, explaining why he brokered his widely criticized deal with Trump. He argued that the firm was facing an “existential crisis” in the face of a Trump executive order that would have crippled its ability to work with clients.
Karp also made clear that he felt abandoned by his Big Law peers as he weighed his next step. “Disappointingly, far from support, we learned that certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys,” Karp wrote.
Karp said he feared for the firm. The Times recounted the events that led to the deal. Karp and some of the firm’s 200 partners decided to broker a deal with Trump, rather than engage in what would have been a drawn-out legal battle.
“Clients had told us that they were not going to be able to stay with us, even though they wanted to,” Karp wrote. “It was very likely that our firm would not be able to survive a protracted dispute with the Administration.”
