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1:00

subject to change. come

1:04

from

1:07

a big family of lawyers. My

1:09

late grandfather, when he came home from the

1:11

Army after World War II, he

1:13

used the GI Bill to get a free

1:16

law degree from St. John's University here in

1:18

Queens, New York. My dad's a lawyer

1:20

at a big firm. Two of my

1:22

brothers are lawyers. I'm married to a

1:24

lawyer. All to say, my

1:27

experience with lawyers is that they tend

1:29

not to give up. They

1:31

really don't like to let

1:33

things go. Which

1:38

is why it's kind of surprising to

1:40

me that the Trump administration has been

1:42

so successful at pushing around some of

1:44

our country's most prominent lawyers. These

1:47

are the law firms collectively

1:49

known simply as Big Law. The

1:52

top 20, 25 law

1:54

firms in the

1:57

country. That's

1:59

Ankush Khadori, a former

2:01

federal prosecutor at the DOJ. Before

2:03

that, a former Big Law attorney. Now,

2:06

he's a senior writer at Political

2:08

Magazine. These really, really large

2:10

law firms, mostly based in New York

2:12

and D .C., with offices all over the

2:14

country and sometimes all over the world, sort

2:16

of these large, large, thousand -plus

2:18

attorney firms. In the

2:21

months since Donald Trump began his second

2:23

term, big law has found itself

2:25

in his crosshairs. And

2:27

now? I did not foresee

2:29

anything like this series of executive orders,

2:31

much less the settlements that have now

2:33

emerged in their wake. These

2:38

executive orders started coming in

2:40

soon after Trump's inauguration. In

2:42

late February, he began revoking

2:45

security clearances for Covington and Burling,

2:47

a firm that gave free legal

2:49

services to former special prosecutor Jack

2:51

Smith. When he signed the order, Trump

2:53

made no secret about his motivations. Hold

2:56

it. This is a good one.

2:58

Is everybody listening? Deranged

3:01

Jack Smith. We're going to call

3:03

it the Deranged Jack Smith. Signing

3:06

or bill one law firm that

3:08

provided pro bono legal services to

3:10

the special counsel's office under Jackson

3:12

its leadership was coming to the

3:14

burling And that was just the

3:17

start. In the months since, Trump

3:19

has issued executive orders against some of

3:21

the biggest firms in the country. While

3:23

a handful of these firms are fighting Trump's

3:26

executive orders in court, at least nine of

3:28

them have made deals with the president. In

3:30

an effort to try to get Trump to back

3:32

off, These firms have promised to spend

3:34

money on free legal work. That's

3:36

pro bono, as they say, for

3:38

issues that were supposed to be of

3:40

mutual interest between big law and the

3:42

White House. But over the past

3:45

week, Trump has hinted that

3:47

he sees this collective $1

3:49

billion pot as more of a

3:51

personal legal fund. Would it surprise

3:53

you if, say, a year from now, you

3:55

saw your former law firm, Paul Weiss, working

3:57

on behalf of, say, the coal industry, or

3:59

if you saw scatting, defending various Trump

4:01

officials in court? You

4:03

know, several weeks ago, that

4:05

would have been a pretty

4:07

unthinkable proposition, having these

4:09

firms being put directly to use on

4:11

Trump's behalf to further his interest. But

4:13

over the last week, that has shifted

4:15

a little bit. And I think that

4:17

possibility has sort of moved into the

4:19

realm of something we may actually see. Would

4:22

you say that you're a Star Wars guy, Unkush?

4:24

I like the original trilogy, and I will

4:26

leave it there. So this might be a little

4:28

on the nose, but I can't stop thinking

4:30

about this one scene from Empire Strikes Back. Lando

4:33

Calrissian, he's running this independent city.

4:35

It's called Cloud City. It's this

4:37

for -profit business place. It's not

4:39

political. He's interested in making money.

4:41

He's not interested in rebels or

4:43

empire. And at one point, Luke

4:46

Skywalker and the gang, they head to Cloud

4:48

City to hide out. And of course, Darth

4:50

Vader shows up. He demands that Lando Calrissian

4:52

hand over his friends. And

4:59

Lando's like, we had a deal.

5:01

And the invader just goes like, without even

5:03

looking back. I am altering the deal. Pray

5:06

I don't alter it any further. Right.

5:10

Like this whole thing just feels like a huge

5:12

shakedown to me. Is it not? I mean,

5:14

functionally, certainly it is. And even the

5:17

structure of these settlements, and I kind of

5:19

don't even like calling them settlements, to

5:21

be honest, but even the

5:23

structure of these deals legally

5:25

resemble a shakedown. And in that

5:27

respect, I'm talking about words like

5:29

extortion and bribery under federal criminal

5:31

law. Now,

5:40

obviously, nobody's going to get prosecuted over this

5:42

because it's Trump at the helm of

5:44

this. But your intuition is correct, and it

5:46

actually does have some real grounding in

5:48

federal law. It's not just, I think, a

5:51

colloquialism in this context. Today

5:55

on the show, how big law

5:57

got itself into some big trouble. I'm

6:00

Rob Gunther, sitting in for Mary Harris. You're

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slash what next? Walk

8:40

me through how we got to this

8:42

point. When did Trump start targeting big law?

8:45

So several weeks ago, probably about a month ago

8:47

at this point, Trump issued

8:49

a series of executive orders

8:52

targeting first Covington and

8:54

Burling and then Perkins Cooey.

8:56

And those executive orders

8:58

did several things. One,

9:00

they purported to revoke the

9:02

security clearances of any attorneys who

9:04

held security clearances at those firms.

9:06

Two, purported to prohibit the lawyers

9:08

at those firms from entering

9:10

federal property, which would include not

9:13

just federal offices, but federal courthouses. And

9:15

three, questioned whether the firm's

9:18

clients' contracts with the government might

9:20

also be in jeopardy as a result

9:22

of those clients' relationship with

9:24

the firms. So those were

9:26

sort of the three principal sanctions that

9:28

Trump imposed in those orders. And then

9:30

we've had a larger number of firms

9:33

beginning with Paul Weiss entering into these

9:35

deals with Trump to get out from

9:37

under the executive orders or to preempt

9:39

executive orders that may have targeted them. So

9:42

Trump is issuing these orders. Why is he

9:44

issuing these orders? What are these specific charges

9:46

against these firms? And how is he justify

9:48

or explain them? So

9:50

this is a very good question

9:52

because it's not altogether clear. But

9:54

let's start with what he's saying. What

9:57

they have said is

9:59

that these firms have been

10:01

undermining the government by litigating

10:03

against them in various

10:05

ways. They have criticized

10:07

the firm's DEI commitments, which were

10:09

never very strong to begin with.

10:11

I think that one's a very

10:13

obvious pretext. So those have

10:15

been among the criticisms that they have publicly

10:18

levied. But in the

10:20

first series of executive orders, you could

10:22

discern a pattern, which was that

10:24

the firms that he had targeted. either

10:26

had worked for the Democratic Party or

10:29

an affiliate or hired or at one

10:31

point employed partners who had worked on

10:33

either a Trump prosecution or investigation. So

10:36

for instance, Wilmer Harrell had

10:38

Robert Mueller, Jenner and

10:40

Block, which was also targeted, had Andrew Weissman,

10:42

who was a deputy, to Robert

10:44

Mueller, Paul Weiss, had Mark Pomerance,

10:46

who worked for a while on the

10:48

Manhattan DA's investigation into Trump. And

10:51

Perkins Cooey, of course, represented the

10:53

Democratic Party. throughout the 2016

10:55

election. And they eventually

10:57

engaged on behalf of the party

10:59

or picked up the engagement of

11:01

Fusion GPS, which was

11:04

the sort of, I don't

11:06

know what you really call it, sort of

11:08

opposition research outfit type thing that... I mean,

11:10

can we say the p -tape at this point?

11:12

That's what this whole thing was, right? Yeah, that

11:14

spun up the steel dossier and the p -tape

11:16

allegations. So, I mean, it's just,

11:18

it's all personal for Trump, right? It's

11:20

just, this is all grounded in his personal

11:22

beefs. I mean, he has been upset

11:24

about the 2016 election since 2016. Clearly, they

11:27

tried and failed to prosecute one of

11:29

the lawyers at Perkins Cooley. But

11:31

since then, it's become less obvious what

11:33

the connection is. And I think it

11:35

honestly just seems to be that the Trump

11:37

administration and the people in the

11:39

White House have this very broad antipathy

11:41

toward what they perceive as big

11:43

law or white collar law firms. And

11:46

in part, it seems to be

11:48

because they feel like these firms did

11:50

not welcome Trump administration officials after

11:52

the first term, which is not exactly

11:54

a very high -minded rationale. When

11:57

these deals were first starting to be made,

12:00

what was the general understanding about what was

12:02

being agreed to? Because to me, it sounded

12:04

like, OK, we'll do a bunch of

12:06

free pro bono work. But now it

12:08

seems like the expectations might be a little

12:10

different on both sides. Right. So

12:12

yes, initially, Sort of

12:14

the first real inkling we got was in

12:16

the form of Trump sending out through two

12:18

social set of terms that he had purportedly

12:21

agreed upon with Brad Karp in order to

12:23

get out from under the executive order that

12:25

had targeted Paul Weiss. Brad Karp is the

12:27

chairman of Paul Weiss. Carp

12:29

agreed on behalf of Paul Weiss to

12:31

commit $40 million with a pro bono work

12:33

toward the administration's initiatives. It was very,

12:35

very vague. It seems to be the case

12:37

that the firms themselves thought they weren't

12:39

really giving Trump anything because they would be

12:41

able to say, well, these are commitments

12:43

that are already in line with the way

12:45

we select cases and our pro bono

12:48

objectives. It seems to be that that

12:50

was their hope. Since then, however, over

12:52

the last week in particular, Trump has

12:54

kind of been publicly taunting them by

12:56

suggesting in various contexts that he may

12:59

take those commitments and try

13:01

to force these firms

13:03

to work for the administration

13:05

and things like negotiating

13:07

trade deals or the Venezuelan

13:09

deportations of Venezuelans, things

13:11

like that. It's

13:14

not clear how serious he is,

13:16

but if he pushes that,

13:18

we could be headed toward a

13:20

very remarkable situation and a

13:22

very awkward encounter. Yeah,

13:24

a lot of this came out in reporting

13:26

last week. And it's basically, if you take

13:28

all of these agreements in total, Trump seems

13:30

to be thinking that he has like a

13:32

billion dollar war chest. So

13:35

a billion dollars is the

13:37

collective sum that these law firms have agreed

13:39

to. And the New

13:41

York Times and their reporting, they

13:43

talked to one lawyer, they didn't

13:45

name them, but this lawyer is

13:47

directly involved in the negotiations and

13:49

said that Trump's comments suggesting that

13:51

he could use this as a

13:53

personal legal fund, they might actually

13:55

unravel these deals. Yeah,

13:58

we shall see. I mean, they might. I

14:00

think it would put these firms

14:02

in a very, very awkward position.

14:04

I mean, working on behalf of the

14:07

federal government would create all sorts

14:09

of complications, including complications with their

14:11

ethical commitments to their clients, including

14:13

clients that are adverse to the government. It

14:15

could unravel them. But

14:18

we shall see. I mean, frankly, the one

14:20

thing that we've learned from these firms, which

14:22

I knew, but many people have been surprised

14:24

to learn, and I understand why, is that

14:26

they're pretty craven and cowardly. And they will

14:28

say things like that anonymously to the New

14:30

York Times, but would they ever attach their

14:32

name to a statement saying like, we're not

14:34

going to do this? That's not going to

14:36

happen. So that already is a bad sign.

14:39

But look, Trump likes to taunt

14:41

people. When he's got them down, he

14:43

likes to keep his foot on their necks. He

14:45

could just be messing with them. Who knows? But

14:47

I do think You know, one of

14:49

the things he's done pretty effectively is really

14:51

humiliated them. And, you know, he's been not

14:53

just talking about like, we're going to put

14:55

this money to use for the administration, but

14:57

you sort of alluded to it. He's been

14:59

talking about this in very personal terms, saying,

15:01

oh, they've given me this money. I've

15:04

got a billion dollars now that

15:06

they've committed to me to use, got

15:08

this huge war chest. It's really,

15:10

really quite striking. And I think it's

15:12

quite humiliating for these law firms,

15:14

I must say, who fancy themselves as

15:16

very savvy and sophisticated litigators and

15:19

negotiators. And the

15:21

notion that they were going

15:23

to outmaneuver Trump this easily,

15:25

I think was farcical, quite honestly. And

15:27

they're the ones who are being made to look like fools

15:29

at the moment. How were the firms that

15:31

gave in to Trump explaining their choice? Like, how are

15:33

they doing it internally? How are they doing it externally?

15:36

Internally, what they're saying is basically that they

15:38

didn't really give Trump much, that the

15:40

commitments they made to him were already in

15:43

line with their values. That's the claim

15:45

internally, and also internally that they

15:47

were going to suffer a potential existential crisis.

15:49

That at least is the claim that

15:51

Brad Karp made internally in Paul Weiss. I

15:53

don't take either of those claims particularly seriously,

15:55

nor do I think all the partners, even

15:57

at Paul Weiss, take those claims seriously. externally,

16:01

they have tried to keep their heads down

16:03

and not say much at all and keep

16:05

quiet and hope the whole thing blows over. I

16:08

mean, do you buy that argument that the firms

16:10

would go out of business if they didn't sign

16:12

on? No, I do not. And honestly,

16:14

I find the argument a little obnoxious.

16:16

Paul Weiss is more profitable than like

16:18

99 .5 % of the law firms in

16:20

this country. Brad Karp makes

16:22

tens of millions of dollars a year. The

16:24

average profit per partner at Paul Weiss,

16:26

which is among the highest in the world,

16:28

is $6 .5 million per partner. So could

16:30

they have survived like a 50 % cut?

16:32

Could the partners have lived off $3

16:34

million a year? I would hope so. Maybe

16:36

they don't think so, but we don't

16:38

have to take their claims seriously. On

16:41

the other side, there have been a few

16:43

associates who have at least made news

16:45

coverage when they left, when they decided to leave

16:47

these firms, citing a moral stance. How

16:49

widespread is this mindset within these firms

16:51

at the lower level? You

16:53

know, I think that discontent is very

16:55

real and it's widespread. However, you

16:57

know, we have seen several

17:00

people leave and then sort

17:02

of emerge in the media, but

17:04

that's a, it's a paltry number in

17:06

the scheme of things. I mean, what's

17:08

really happening here, the actual takeaway here

17:10

is that 99 .99999 % of the lawyers

17:12

at these firms are staying. Given

17:15

that, I'm trying to understand the existential

17:17

threat here for those firms. They're

17:19

not worried about people leaving. They're

17:21

not worried about their financial

17:23

security. Are they maybe looking

17:25

further into the future? Are they

17:27

trying to hedge their bets? Okay,

17:29

well, if Trump is out of office, we'll be

17:32

in a good spot. And if Trump just keeps

17:34

going, we'll always be around in some way to

17:36

make money. Well, they will always

17:38

be around. You can pretty much guarantee

17:40

that. Even during the financial crisis, these

17:42

firms largely all survived with very little

17:44

change. I think the explanation, it's

17:46

a simple one and it's an unsatisfying one.

17:48

I think they didn't want to make

17:50

less money. I

17:53

don't think the firms are going to go out of business. I

17:55

don't think that there is much sort of long

17:57

-term strategy. I know Brad Karp enough to know

17:59

that he's the type of person who does things like

18:01

this without thinking that far ahead. So

18:04

I think it's greed. It's as simple as

18:06

that. There was no existential crisis. You should not

18:08

take him seriously. There's a reason he's been

18:10

in hiding since these deals. And I expect

18:12

he'll be in hiding for quite some time. We'll

18:16

be back after a quick break. This

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available in all states and situations. Some

20:30

people have raised the question of whether

20:32

or not these deals are actually legal. To

20:35

understand why, Ankush says it's useful to

20:37

focus in on the example of

20:39

one firm. Here's what actually happened

20:41

with the deal with Brad Karp and Paul

20:43

Weiss and Trump. Trump had

20:45

imposed a collection of sanctions on

20:47

Paul Weiss, including, for instance, that

20:49

he had pulled all the security

20:51

clearances for anyone at the firm

20:53

that held those clearances. Once

20:55

that happened, Brad Karp went in, and

20:58

according to the reporting, came up with

21:00

this proposal to offer Trump this pro

21:02

bono work at this sort of value,

21:04

40 million, I don't know how they

21:06

came up with the number, but that

21:08

this was a framework that sort of

21:10

Karp had come up with and pursued himself to try

21:12

to get a quick deal with the White House. Now,

21:15

ordinarily, when someone pays

21:17

a government official to

21:19

undertake an official act, which would

21:21

be, for instance, giving back

21:24

security clearances, we would call that

21:26

bribery under federal law or

21:28

extortion, because someone is paying a

21:30

government official to undertake an

21:32

official act to benefit them. Now,

21:35

it does not matter that the money

21:37

that was paid by the firms went

21:39

to a third party rather than Trump,

21:41

although Trump characterizes them as payments to

21:43

him anyway. And also, if

21:45

someone in this sort of setting

21:47

is the quote unquote victim, but

21:50

they came up with the idea

21:52

to engage in this transaction. They

21:54

can have exposure under federal criminal

21:56

law for conspiring to engage in

21:58

extortion and aiding and abetting extortion,

22:00

even though they are the quote unquote victim.

22:03

Now, you might be wondering, why is that

22:05

a good rule? Like that seems kind of

22:07

unfair to the victim. Well, the

22:09

best reason is because you

22:11

wanna make sure that more people

22:13

don't follow suit and engage

22:15

in the same corrupt practice. And

22:17

the other thing I would just say

22:19

before we go down further is I

22:21

think it's useful to think about how

22:24

we would interpret these events if we

22:26

read about them going on in another

22:28

country. If foreign correspondents were

22:30

reporting about the wealthiest lawyers in

22:32

some Eastern European country going to the

22:34

president, offering up tens of millions

22:36

of dollars in concessions in order to

22:38

remain on the government's good side,

22:41

we would call that state sanctioned bribery

22:43

and extortion. We would not be

22:45

mincing words about it. You know,

22:47

one thing that's striking me from

22:49

this whole conversation since the start, you

22:52

know, the law firms are worrying about trying to

22:54

keep their bottom line solvent, right? They're

22:56

trying to figure out how to do

22:58

business in this landscape, regardless of who's

23:00

in charge. But my

23:02

understanding is that a lot of these firms are

23:05

going to be hired by people who have

23:07

to do work in front of the government, against

23:09

the government. And so my

23:11

question is, in the future, for these

23:13

firms that are deciding to make these

23:15

agreements, how are they hoping

23:17

to attract clients that might have business

23:19

in front of the government if they've

23:21

already shown a willingness to sort

23:23

of give up as soon as the government tells

23:25

them to? You know,

23:27

look, here's what their best spin, I

23:29

think, and what I think even the clients

23:32

would in many senses understand, which

23:34

is that when you're a large

23:36

company, And these places work for large

23:38

companies. You often are facing

23:40

the government. Sometimes you're facing unfair allegations. But

23:42

the question of how you resolve those

23:44

allegations, whether you fight or not fight, is

23:46

a sensitive one. It's one about risk

23:48

tolerance. It's one about how you assess the

23:50

merits and the probabilities and the financial

23:52

exposure. And these

23:55

firms advise clients to settle matters,

23:57

including with the federal government, quite. regularly

24:00

and negotiate settlements like that. Sometimes the advice is

24:02

to take it to court for various reasons.

24:04

Sometimes often the advice is to settle it if

24:06

you have the opportunity. And

24:08

this all quite resembles how white collar

24:10

regulatory investigations work in practice. And

24:12

I think it's no accident that these

24:14

things have unfolded in that way

24:16

and that they've unfolded that way in

24:19

large part because the firms handle

24:21

that type of business. And if

24:23

you take it a step further, I think the

24:25

people that are worried about allowing this

24:27

to continue. They're imagining some

24:29

pretty big changes to law, to

24:31

big law as a practice. Are

24:33

there parties in the future that might

24:35

have trouble finding representation to firm

24:37

step back from pro bono work entirely?

24:40

What are the bigger ramifications

24:42

here? Yeah,

24:44

I mean, look, the clients that they work

24:46

for are the largest interests in the country,

24:48

right? I think there are partners now who

24:50

bill up to $3 ,000 an hour. The

24:52

average billable rate is like $1 ,000 an hour.

24:54

You and I could not afford these firms

24:56

if we needed them, right? We, people like

24:58

you and me and the people who are

25:00

listening, we go to the 99 % of

25:02

other firms, regional firms, smaller local practitioners for

25:05

our legal needs. So when we're thinking about

25:07

like the impact of these deals on the

25:09

legal profession, kind of writ large, I do

25:11

think it's sort of concentrated to these elite firms,

25:13

quote unquote elite firms, and

25:15

their client base. And that

25:17

at least for paying work, this isn't going to

25:19

affect the average person because the average person

25:22

doesn't have access to these law firms anyway. Now,

25:24

I do think on the pro

25:27

bono side, we could see some

25:29

effects. But let me just underscore

25:31

again that these firms do less pro bono

25:33

work than they like to portray themselves as

25:35

doing. What they do is very valuable. It is

25:37

laudable, but it is a very small part

25:39

of what they do. I do

25:41

think potentially we may see the firms

25:43

slightly deterred from litigating against the

25:45

Trump administration, although I think that effect

25:47

was already somewhat in place. And

25:49

I don't think Paul Weiss had been

25:51

doing any of this pro bono

25:53

litigation against Trump on the executive orders,

25:55

whereas other firms had the ACLU

25:57

and Democracy Forward are pursuing those cases

25:59

and other nonprofits. I do

26:02

think there could be a

26:04

pretty tangible impact on pro bono

26:06

representation for asylum cases. for

26:08

migrants who are applying for assignment because

26:11

law firms do actually do a fair

26:13

amount of work on that front because

26:15

they're pretty good ways for junior associates

26:17

to get experience litigating and the firms

26:19

kind of use them that way. And

26:21

I think there could be a chilling

26:23

effect in that area. So

26:26

nine of these big firms have agreements

26:28

with the Trump administration, but there

26:30

are a few that have notably decided

26:32

to fight back. How is that

26:35

going for them? It's going well

26:37

so far. They've managed to secure

26:39

preliminary injunctions pretty early on. Those

26:41

are not final determinations, but they're

26:43

prevailing in the lower courts. In

26:46

terms of the business, at

26:48

least outwardly, they're putting

26:50

on a pretty brave face.

26:53

There has been some reporting. I think Perkins

26:55

Kui itself has acknowledged that they've lost a

26:57

fair amount of revenue as a result of

26:59

the order. But for the most part, at

27:01

least in the courts, they're faring pretty well so far. Have

27:04

they lost any of their big clients?

27:06

It's my understanding that places like Boeing,

27:08

Microsoft, Amazon, they're all sticking with Perkins

27:10

so far. It does seem to be

27:12

the case that these companies, at least

27:14

the big clients, have been sticking with

27:16

them. And I'm not surprised by that,

27:18

to be honest. I think to some

27:20

extent, the clients are general

27:22

counsels at these firms. They're lawyers

27:24

too. So the lawyers who hire these

27:26

firms, they understand these issues too. So

27:29

my suspicion is that the general counsels of a

27:31

lot of these places are themselves quite concerned. Actually, it's

27:33

not even really a suspicion. A bunch

27:35

of them, former general counsels, have

27:37

put in amicus briefs of their

27:39

own opposing these deals in pretty

27:41

strong terms. And these are former

27:43

general counsels from very, very large

27:46

companies. And my strong suspicion

27:48

is that the current general counsels from

27:50

a lot of large companies also share

27:52

the view that these deals are quite

27:54

problematic and that they don't want to

27:56

aid and abet the destruction of these

27:58

firms. Unkush,

28:01

thank you so much for your time. I'm very grateful to have

28:03

you on the show. Thanks for having me. Unkush

28:08

Carduri is a senior writer at Political

28:10

Magazine and a former federal prosecutor

28:12

in the US Justice Department. Before

28:14

that, he worked as an attorney at

28:16

Paul Weiss. And

28:19

that's the show. What next

28:21

is produced by Paige Osburn, Elena

28:23

Schwartz, Anna Phillips, Madeline Dusharm,

28:25

and Ethan Oberman. Ben

28:27

Richmond is the senior director of podcast

28:29

operations here at Slate. And I'm Rob

28:31

Gunther, in for Mary Harris. You

28:34

can find me on Blue Sky. I'm at One

28:36

Rob Gunther. Thanks for listening. Talk

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