Law Firms Made Deals With Trump. Now He Wants More From Them. [View all]

Source: NYT

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Over the last week, he has suggested that the firms will be drafted into helping him negotiate trade deals.

He has mused about having them help with his goal of reviving the coal industry.

And he has hinted that he sees the promises of nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services that he has extracted from the elite law firms — including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher — as a legal war chest to be used as he wishes.

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But now that nine firms have agreed to deals and committed to nearly $1 billion worth of pro bono legal work, some Trump advisers have started having discussions about a range of options for what the firms’ lawyers can be deployed to work on, according to two people briefed on the matter. That work could include sending the lawyers to help Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or deploying them to aid the Justice Department, they said.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/us/politics/law-firms-deals-trump.html

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The article quotes a professor of law at Yale saying the firms thought they'd made one-shot deals, while "the administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude."

And some of those fools even rushed to capitulate to Trump before he directly threatened them.

At least this is a warning to law firms and others thinking of capitulating in the hope it will end with the first things Trump demands.