Paul Weiss cuts deal with Trump - here’s what happened

In a headline-making twist, Paul Weiss has struck a deal with the Trump administration to provide $40 million worth of pro bono legal advice in exchange for the withdrawal of Doanld Trump’s controversial executive order that threatened the firm’s future.

The agreement was reached on Thursday (20 March) and commits PW to provide free legal advice on a broad range of matters during Trump’s presidency, explicitly including those that “represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints.”

According to Trump’s statement on his social media platform Truth Social, PW has also agreed not to “adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies”, and to uphold merit-based hiring.

The executive order was issued on 14 March.

It sought to suspend government security clearances for PW employees and to terminate government contracts "for which Paul Weiss has been hired to perform any service” - moves clearly designed to make clients think twice about working with the firm.

Fallout begins

Public reaction across the legal industry has been largely critical. Commentators on LinkedIn and X have accused Paul Weiss of capitulating to political pressure.

Above the Law put it bluntly: “Faced with calls to stand up to the Trump administration and defend the rule of law, Paul Weiss blinked. And law and order is worse off for it.”

Karp defends the deal

Despite the backlash, PW maintains that the deal is consistent with its values. In a firm-wide email sent later on 20 March, chair Brad Karp stressed that the commitments reflect its long-standing principles of fostering a workplace “reflecting a wide variety of religious, political, ethnic and social backgrounds.”

An ‘existential crisis’

Even though the legal enforceability of some of Trump’s measures has been questioned, PW’s leadership clearly took the threat very seriously.

In an internal email to staff yesterday - reproduced by David Lat in Original Jurisdiction - Karp described the situation as “an existential crisis”, adding that the order “could easily have destroyed our firm" and that "Clients had told us that they were not going to be able to stay with us, even though they wanted to."

Karp was also pretty scathing about the response of Big Law rivals in the face of Trump’s attacks.

He said the firm was "hopeful that the legal industry would rally to our side”, but “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."