Fascists respond to capitulation with more aggression. Elon Musk has already started targeting firms himself.
This piece originally appeared at The American Prospect. To read it on the original website, click here.
On March 14th, President Trump signed an executive order targeting the BigLaw firm Paul, Weiss for supposed disloyalty against him and his political allies, namely, hiring Mark Pomerantz, an attorney who had assisted in the Manhattan DA’s successful prosecution of him. In retaliation, Paul, Weiss was to be barred from doing business with the federal government, and a list of federal contractors that employ the firm was to be compiled, presumably for similar restrictions. The executive order also stripped the firm’s employees of any security clearances they may have had, limited their access to federal buildings, and barred future employment in the federal government.
This would be an unprecedented step, had Trump not already targeted firms Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling for representing Hillary Clinton and assisting former government Special Counsel Jack Smith, respectively. But unlike those other firms, Paul, Weiss, led by its chairman Brad Karp, unilaterally surrendered last Thursday.
While other firms chose to fight these clearly illegal orders, Karp chose to surrender, a pathetic attempt to preserve the little influence his firm has remaining. This decision almost certainly stems from the business model of BigLaw: influence peddling. It is their political connections—as former insiders, future appointees, and donors—that make Paul, Weiss invaluable to their clients, not their litigating prowess. This is what Karp sought to protect by rolling over.
But it’s not going to work. As the world learned in 1938, men like Trump do not respond graciously to appeasement. Instead, they pocket the victory, immediately break any promises they have made, and demand more. Paul, Weiss’s reputation as a law firm is now kaput; it must be regarded as an adjunct of the Trump administration. Anyone wanting honest representation should take their business elsewhere, and anyone wanting favors from Trump might as well go to the man himself.
The agreement Karp signed is extraordinarily humiliating. It includes a pledge to devote $40 million in pro bono work to Trump-related causes, among them “the President’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.” The firm also pledged not to discriminate against clients based on their political views and to cease any “DEI.” The last point was reportedly added by the White House after Karp and Trump had already agreed to the wording of the agreement—clearly an attempt to further subordinate Karp.
Some have attempted to understand Karp’s reasoning as merely a tactical forfeit, arguing that the firm in fact gave up very little in light of the firm’s ability to decline to represent clients for other reasons, the scope of their existing pro bono work, and federal court decisions on racial preference in hiring.
But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how authoritarians like Trump operate. Betrayal and escalating demands are certain.
Just look at Columbia University. After the school’s unprecedented capitulation to demands from the White House last week, a senior DOJ official said that it did not matter. “I will tell you right now that Columbia has not in my opinion—and the opinion of the Department of Justice—has not cleaned up their act.” He continued, “They’re not even close, not even close to having those funds unfrozen.” The concession did not satiate their appetite for cruelty, it merely made them hungry for more.
Likewise, Paul, Weiss’s concessions will not stop the Trump administration’s demands. In fact, it will likely cause private actors to make similarly brazen demands of the firm. If one of the most elite white-shoe law firms will fold like a wet noodle before a wildly unenforceable order, why not see what you can get away with?
For instance, back in 2022 Elon Musk attempted to force the firm Cooley LLP to fire an associate for having previously worked at the SEC on a case against the billionaire. Unlike Paul, Weiss, Cooley refused to give in to his demands, and for this the firm received broad praise. But with a White House eager to back up their billionaire pals and the legal profession already fracturing under pressure, what is to stop Jeff Bezos or another billionaire from using threats to get a firm to end its involvement with a case that displeases them?
Indeed, emboldened by Paul, Weiss’s submission to Trump, Musk has already targeted the BigLaw firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in a tweet on Sunday, demanding that the firm stop pursuing a pro bono case against convicted (and pardoned) felon and right-wing provocateur Dinesh D’Souza. Skadden had previously represented Musk throughout his acquisition of Twitter, making burned bridges potentially very costly, even before considering Musk’s influence within the federal government. If Musk succeeds at this or other pressure campaigns against other law firms, the profession will be besieged by oligarchs looking to punish dissent.
This has always been a tacit element of the way that BigLaw operates. If you want to get a high-paying job at an elite firm after serving in government, best not to rock the boat too much. This is one of the core reasons why the Revolving Door Project was created—an attempt to curtail the pernicious and anti-democratic effects of corporate influence over civil servants. But what Trump and Musk are attempting is a dramatic escalation of this corrupt dynamic.
If you currently serve in government as a lawyer, are you likely to speak out against abuses by the Trump administration, or open an investigation on any of his allies, if you know that you’ll be fired and your legal career will be ruined? Before, you could have at least hoped that a large firm, worried about its sterling reputation, would protect you. But with the caving of Paul, Weiss, no longer.
The current situation is the logical conclusion of a system warped by the revolving door. As in all things, Donald Trump’s vulgarity and lack of pretense has taken a somewhat corrupt system to a radical extreme. It follows that any effort to fix the damage must go far beyond restoring the status quo.
We cannot simply reset our institutions to the vulnerable position they were in as of November 2024. Any progressive “Project 2029” must rebuild our civil service with more robust protections for its employees. Regardless of how much neoliberals disparage public-employee unions, we must strengthen them in order to insulate public employees from another DOGE. We must reward career civil service with upward advancement, promoting qualified public servants to positions of power, instead of politically connected attorneys in between stints at elite firms. We should make career jobs in government once again genuinely jobs expected to be held, if one excels, for the remainder of the professional’s career—including raising salaries to be more competitive with private-sector work, to reduce the temptation of the revolving door.
Until this can be done, BigLaw must stand up to Trump. Democrats can encourage this by shutting out firms that concede to the Trump administration—which would be wise anyway, as they’d be fools to trust a Trump sycophant. Access to power is what has propelled these firms to the top of the legal profession—it is also a cudgel that can be used to keep them from submitting to the White House.
But Democrats likely cannot do this alone—lawyers within these firms must stand up. While the protest by Skadden associate Rachel Cohen was admirable, it should not be left to mere associates to lead the fight against Trump’s authoritarian machinations. Partners, particularly those who consider themselves influential Democrats, should be leading the fight against the Trump administration. Appeasement will only lead to certain destruction.