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Some lawyers said the deal was driven by profit. Others said it was enabling autocracy. One said the move had prompted her to quit her legal job in disgust.
All over the legal world, lawyers on Friday were talking about the deal that Paul Weiss, one of the nation’s most prominent law firms, had made with President Trump to escape an onerous executive order that would have prevented it from representing many clients before the federal government.
It was a striking development in the White House’s broad retribution campaign against big law firms that represented lawyers or prosecutors in the criminal cases against Mr. Trump before the 2024 election.
Paul Weiss’s move was a particular point of contention because of the firm’s standing in the legal community. The firm has long been dominated by Democrats and prided itself on being at the forefront of fights against the government for civil rights.
“They have all the resources they need to fight an unlawful order,” said John Moscow, who was a top prosecutor at the Manhattan district attorney’s office under Robert Morgenthau. “The example they are setting is to surrender to unlawful orders rather than fight them in court.”
Lawyers at firms both large and small took to social media to denounce the firm.
“This is a time for soul-searching,” another lawyer, who used to work at Paul Weiss, wrote on LinkedIn.
“It’s not too late to leave your firm and find one with a backbone,” said a commenter on Paul Weiss’s corporate LinkedIn page.
Leslie Levin, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, said she was “deeply disappointed” that the firm had struck a deal with Mr. Trump, especially given its history.
“Lawyers are supposed to stand up to the government when there’s an abuse of power, and a firm like Paul Weiss has the capacity to do that,” Ms. Levin said.
Many large firms, she said, are struggling with how to respond to pressure from the Trump administration. But basing decisions on concern about harm to their business goes against key tenets of the legal profession, she said.
Mr. Trump has issued executive orders targeting other law firms, too, including Perkins Coie, which opted last week to sue in federal court. A federal judge in Washington ruled that the order targeting Perkins was likely unconstitutional and issued a restraining order halting it. That legal battle is ongoing.
The American Bar Association released a statement this month condemning the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine major law firms, stating that these actions by the White House “deny clients access to justice and betray our fundamental values.”
Hundreds of associates at leading corporate law firms have signed an open letter calling on their employers to speak out against the Trump administration’s moves, arguing that the White House’s behavior could intimidate firms from taking on specific clients.
On Thursday, Rachel Cohen, an associate at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, shared screenshots on LinkedIn of a resignation email she had sent to the firm’s staff, citing the firm’s “lack of response to the Trump administration’s attacks on our peers.” Paul Weiss’s decision to make concessions to the Trump administration “has forced my hand,” Ms. Cohen wrote in her email.
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