Top US law firms react to Trump’s assault: Paul Weiss bows, Perkins Coie fights back
Bloomberg |
Mar 24, 2025 07:57 PM IST
Two of the nation’s largest law firms are taking drastically different approaches to being targeted by President Donald Trump: acceptance and defiance.
Two of the nation’s largest law firms are taking drastically different approaches to being targeted by President Donald Trump: acceptance and defiance.
Paul Weiss and Perkins Coie are giants in the legal world,(AFP)
Paul Weiss and Perkins Coie are giants in the legal world,(AFP)
For both firms, Paul Weiss and Perkins Coie, there is no clear resolution when caught in the president’s unprecedented assault on the legal profession.
Paul Weiss struck a $40 million deal with Donald Trump late last week to rescind a March 14 executive order that threatened security clearances for its lawyers and directed federal agencies to scrap contracts with the firm’s clients.
The deal sparked concern that some partners and clients might defect in protest, but it also muted its most pressing business impact.
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Perkins Coie has taken its case over a similar order against the firm to court. It hired lawyers from the hard-charging firm Williams & Connolly, who on March 12 earned a preliminary bar on much of the order’s implementation.
A federal judge has been working to ensure federal agencies comply with her ruling allowing Perkins Coie lawyers access to federal buildings and staff. But on Friday, the Justice Department sought to disqualify the DC federal judge, and Perkins Coie still faces the risk of losing business as the government fights on.
“From Perkins’ point of view, they would feel committed to their path partly because they’ve already won” the temporary restraining order, said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies. “We don’t know whether Paul Weiss’ gamble is going to look in two weeks as if it paid off or didn’t pay off.”
‘If Anybody Would Fight It’
Paul Weiss and Perkins Coie are giants in the legal world, among the nation’s 50 largest law firms by revenue, who prior to the executive orders occupied different corners of the Big Law market.
Paul Weiss, founded in New York in 1875, was for decades viewed as one of the elite litigation firms in the country. More recently, chair Brad Karp led an investment in the firm’s corporate practice, earning major business from Apollo Global Management, and other top private equity firms. Its equity partners in 2024 earned on average $7.5 million, according to The American Lawyer.
Culturally, Paul Weiss is known for leading the way in early hires of diverse lawyers, including being the first major New York firm to hire a black woman, Pauli Murray, in 1956. The firm’s “principles,” adopted in 1963, include a commitment to “maintaining, by affirmative efforts, a membership of partners and associates reflecting a wide variety of religious, political, ethnic and social backgrounds.”
The agreement struck with Trump states that the firm will dedicate the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono legal services over Trump’s term to support the administration’s initiatives that include veterans’ assistance and the President’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. It also says that the firm “will not adopt, use or pursue any DEI policies” and will conduct an audit of its employment practices within 14 days.
Karp in a pair of firmwide emails defended the settlement he crafted in Washington.
He said the deal was necessary to resolve the “unprecedented threat” and “existential crisis” facing the firm, and argued that the agreement stuck to the principles Paul Weiss adopted decades ago. Karp also took a shot at rival law firms, which he said tried to “exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys.”
Others interpreted the actions differently.
“I thought if anybody would fight it, it would be Paul Weiss—that was their ethos,” said Alisa Levin, a recruiter for law firms in New York. She noted the decision could threaten the firm’s standing with potential lateral partner hires.
Still, resolving the order’s potential impact on clients with business before the federal government “justified” Paul Weiss’ choice, said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University Law School.
“We need to acknowledge that the firm is ceding some of the traditional autonomy that private US law offices have traditionally enjoyed,” Gillers said. “But most of what the firm promises is conduct that has always reflected the values for which it is known.”
Paul Weiss’ decision is already yielding results, at least on the client side. Former Cognizant executive Steven Schwartz, who fired the firm because of Trump’s executive order, on March 21 told a judge he is reconsidering that decision.
One aspect of the firm’s negotiations with Trump that has drawn particular blowback is a reference in a White House statement that Karp acknowledged “wrongdoing” by former Paul Weiss partner Mark Pomerantz, who pursued an investigation into Trump’s business at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
“I engaged in no wrongdoing by working as a prosecutor to uphold the rule of law,” Pomerantz told Bloomberg Law on March 21.
Perkins Stays ‘Out of the Mud’
Perkins Coie was founded in Seattle in 1912 and has built its reputation as an adviser to major technology companies such as Microsoft and Amazon. Its equity partners took home an average of just more than $1.6 million in 2023, according to the latest data from American Lawyer.
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While it has a large general practice, Perkins drew the president’s ire due to its work representing Democrats in election campaigns and its success fighting in court against Trump’s claim of a stolen election in 2020. That work, led by former partner Marc Elias, drew outsize attention compared to its business impact on the firm.
The firm also was involved in hiring Fusion GPS, a political consultant, which developed the so-called Steele dossier that presented unverified allegations of connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.
In court, the firm has defended its work. It noted that a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Trump brought against the firm, Elias, and others related to the Fusion GPS episode and that none of the lawyers involved remain at the firm.
Perkins Coie’s lawsuit said the president’s order was “retaliation” for its work representing Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 election, and other clients who defended cases adverse to Trump and his allies.
Elias echoed the sentiment in a March 22 statement, after Trump name-checked him again in a new executive order instructing the Justice Department to “review conduct” by lawyers in cases against the federal government.
“Elias Law Group will not be deterred from fighting for democracy in court,” Elias said. “There will be no negotiation with this White House about the clients we represent or the lawsuits we bring on their behalf.”
Mark Zaid, a Washington-based lawyer, summed up what some in his profession are saying—although very few for public attribution.
“Perkins Coie is noble and full of integrity and demonstrates to all lawyers that the rule of law is worthy of fighting for,” Zaid said. “And Paul Weiss is just, put your tail between your legs and scurry along a little.”
The New York Post reported last month that Zaid was on a list of lawyers who would have their own security clearances taken away, as Trump’s orders against the legal profession extend to more than a dozen firms.
Perkins has made clear the ongoing threat to its business posed by the executive order. One of its partners said in a court filing that many clients had chosen to leave the firm and that the “easy” path for its partners would be to do the same.
Fred Rivera, a former managing partner of Perkins Coie’s Seattle office and now a lawyer with Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners, said the firm was handling the situation the best it could.
“They are managing this the same way they always have managed difficult circumstances—that’s to do it with integrity, to do it very fact-based, and to always stay out of the mud,” Rivera said. “But there is no doubt it’s stressful. It’s a different type of stress than the financial stress a law firm can have over the years.”
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