1. Home
2. Daily News
3. After 4 BigLaw firms reach deals with Trump,…

Law Firms

After 4 BigLaw firms reach deals with Trump, their future may include coal industry pro bono, DEI caution

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 9, 2025, 10:41 am CDT

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he has some work for BigLaw firms that made pro bono pledges to avoid punitive executive orders.

Trump told coal miners at a White House event that he will direct the law firms to help the coal industry with leasing and also said he would use the firms to negotiate tariffs, report Bloomberg Law, Law.com and Law360.

Four firms have reached deals with Trump. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison agreed to provide $40 million in pro bono services to mutually supported pro bono projects. Three others each pledged $100 million in pro bono work. Those firms are Milbank; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

The deals called for pro bono work in areas that include assisting veterans and public servants, ensuring fairness in the justice system and fighting antisemitism. Milbank’s deal also mentions its work with an exoneration and resentencing project.

Another pledge made by firms was to commit to merit-based employments practices and to refrain from illegal discrimination and preferences related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Following its deal, Skadden removed future events for its employee affinity groups from its calendar, Bloomberg Law reports in a story based on emails and unnamed sources.

During the event Tuesday, Trump signed four executive orders to help the coal industry, the Washington Post reports. One order directs the Department of the Interior to prioritize coal leasing on public lands.

Others tell the attorney general to block enforcement of state laws that impede coal production, tell the Environmental Protection Agency to delay a federal pollution rule that burdens coal-fired power plants, and direct the Department of Energy to prevent the closing of coal and other power plants in regions with an insufficient supply of electricity.

Law360 recounted Trump’s comments.

“Have you noticed a lot of law firms have been signing up with Trump? A hundred million dollars, another $100 million, for damages that they’ve done,” Trump said.

“But they give you $100 million, and then they announce that, ‘But we have done nothing wrong,’” he said. “And I agree, they’ve done nothing wrong, but what the hell, they give me a lot of money considering they’ve done nothing wrong.”

“We’ll use some of those people. We’re going to use some of those firms to work with you on your leasing and your other things,” Trump said. “I think they’re going to do a fantastic job.”

Coal miners and executives were among those attending the event.

Trump began issuing executive orders penalizing disfavored firms in February, beginning with a Feb. 25 order targeting Covington & Burling. Three other firms sued in response to the orders. They are Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, Jenner & Block and Perkins Coie.

The executive orders typically called for suspension of lawyers’ security clearances, restricted employee access to government buildings, blocked government hiring of firm employees, and required agencies to take steps to terminate contracts with the firms and their clients—if the firm provided services in connection with the client contract.

Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Paul Weiss leader cites potential ‘existential…

Law Firms

Paul Weiss leader cites potential ‘existential crisis’ as 1 reason for Trump deal; critics include 141 firm alumni

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 24, 2025, 1:49 pm CDT

An executive order targeting Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison “could easily have destroyed our firm,” the law firm’s chairman, Brad Karp, told employees in a March 23 statement defending the deal that he reached with President Donald Trump.

Karp’s message, printed by Original Jurisdiction, said Paul Weiss was facing an “existential crisis” as a result of a March 14 executive order by Trump. The order had suspended security clearances held by people at the firm, restricted their access to government buildings, required government contractors to disclose whether they do business with the firm, and required agencies to take steps to terminate contracts with Paul Weiss or its clients.

The executive order is being revoked as a result of the deal, Trump announced in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, March 20. According to Trump, the deal provides that Paul Weiss:

  • Will not deny representation to clients because of lawyers’ personal political views.

  • Will take on a wide variety of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints.

  • Will dedicate $40 million in pro bono legal services “to support the administration’s initiatives, including: assisting our nation’s veterans, fairness in the justice system, the president’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and other mutually agreed projects.”

  • “Affirms its commitment to merit-based hiring, promotion and retention and will not adopt, use or pursue any DEI policies.”

Karp sent a copy of the agreement to firm employees that differs from Trump’s description, the New York Times reports. Karp’s version does not mention DEI, but it did affirm a commitment to merits-based employment practices and to hire an outside expert to audit those practices.

Karp also said under the agreement, “the administration is not dictating what matters we take on, approving our matters or anything like that.”

The Truth Social post also quoted a White House statement that said Karp had “acknowledged the wrongdoing of former Paul Weiss partner Mark Pomerantz,” who worked on a criminal case against Trump while he was with the New York district attorney’s office. But Karp’s copy of the agreement did not mention Pomerantz, who has denied doing anything wrong, according to the New York Times.

Karp negotiated the agreement just a few months after suffering a heart attack, the New York Times reports in another article. The deal was supported by “the vast majority” of the firm’s partners, the New York Times said, which relied on anonymous sources.

Karp said he was initially “hopeful that the legal industry would rally to our side” after Trump issued the executive order. Instead “certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys,” he said.

Paul Weiss initially planned to challenge the executive order in a lawsuit, but it soon became clear that a successful legal challenge “would not solve the fundamental problem, which was that clients perceived our firm as being persona non grata with the administration,” Karp said. In reaching a deal, Karp said, “we were guided by our obligation to protect our clients’ interests” and the need to ensure that the firm would survive.

Critics of the deal include 141 Paul Weiss alumni who signed a March 24 letter protesting the firm’s decision, according to a March 24 press release.

“We expected the firm to be a leader in standing up for the legal profession, the adversary system and the right to counsel,” the letter said. “Instead of a ringing defense of the values of democracy, we witnessed a craven surrender to, and thus complicity in, what is perhaps the gravest threat to the independence of the legal profession since at least the days of Sen. Joseph McCarthy.”

Taking the other side is Stephen Gillers, a professor at the New York University School of Law, who told Law.com that Paul Weiss “had no obligation to fight Trump in court.”

The firm “has obligations to its clients, who must deal with the federal government regularly as an adversary or a regulator, and to its thousands of employees, including lawyers,” he said.

Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Plane crash victims include 2 Wilkinson Stekloff…

Obituaries

Plane crash victims include 2 Wilkinson Stekloff associates, civil rights attorney set to join law faculty

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 3, 2025, 10:53 am CST

Victims of the Washington, D.C., plane crash Jan. 29 include two Wilkinson Stekloff associates and a civil rights lawyer planning to join the faculty of the Howard University School of Law this fall.

The associates were Sarah Lee Best and Elizabeth Keys, according to the Wilkinson Stekloff website. They were both 33 years old; Keys died on her birthday. The civil rights attorney was 30-year-old Kiah Duggins, according to her employer, the Civil Rights Corps, and an obituary by her alma mater, Harvard Law School.

Among publications with coverage are Law360, Original Jurisdiction, Law.com (here and here), People and the Wall Street Journal.

While at Harvard Law School, Duggins helped protect families from COVID-19 pandemic evictions as president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. According to John Goldberg, the dean of Harvard Law School, Duggins was known for optimism, kindness and empathy.

“As a student and lawyer, Kiah was known for her boundless enthusiasm for advancing justice for the most vulnerable, and for building community,” Goldberg wrote.

Before joining the Civil Rights Corp, Duggins worked with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the law firm Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin. At the Civil Rights Corps, Duggins challenged unconstitutional policing and money bail practices.

She was also a former Miss Kansas contestant and a graduate of Wichita State University. During her undergrad years, she was a White House intern working for former first lady Michelle Obama, according to Law.com.

Best and Keys were returning to Washington, D.C., from a deposition when their American Airlines plane crashed with an Army Black Hawk helicopter, according to Original Jurisdiction.

Keys, a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, clerked for U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia before joining Wilkinson Stekloff in December 2021. During law school, she was the managing editor of the Georgetown Food and Drug Law Journal.

While an undergraduate at Tufts University, Keys was part of the sailing team, her partner, David Seidman, told Law.com.

David A. Super, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, told Law360 that Keys was “an extraordinary law student and an even better person.” Keys “was everything a great lawyer should be: meticulous but creative, focused but flexible, professional but kind,” Super said.

Best worked for Teach for America before attending the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She graduated in 2021. She clerked for U.S. District Judge John Cronan of the Southern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Judge Eugene E. Siler Jr. of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati.

Best began work at Wilkinson Stekloff in November.

Cronan told Law360 that Best would spend hours mentoring law student interns to help them with research and writing.

“She was so caring and thoughtful and generous and had a wonderful sense of humor,” Cronan said.

Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. MacArthur ‘genius grants’ fellows include…

Careers

MacArthur ‘genius grants’ fellows include law prof, domestic violence researcher

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 3, 2024, 2:30 pm CDT

Among the winners of the 2024 MacArthur Foundation fellowships, commonly known as “genius grants,” are a law professor who studies racial inequities and a researcher who studies the impact of technology on intimate partner abuse.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced 22 fellows Tuesday who will each receive no-strings-attached grants of $800,000 paid over five years, report the New York Times and the Associated Press.

The winners include:

  • Dorothy Roberts, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Her work has exposed racial inequities embedded within health and social service systems. One topic of her writing has been the prosecution of pregnant Black women for using drugs, she told the New York Times.

“I started this work in 1988,” Roberts told the New York Times. “To get this kind of recognition is very gratifying. Not only for me personally but for all the people, especially Black women, who’ve been devalued in these systems.”

  • Nicola Dell, a computer and information scientist. Dell studied the tactics used by domestic abusers to surveil their intimate partners. Dell co-founded the Clinic to End Tech Abuse. The group is staffed with volunteers who “check survivors’ devices for spyware, disentangle joint accounts, and provide other forms of privacy and safety guidance,” according to the MacArthur Foundation’s description.

  • Loka Ashwood, a professor at the University of Kentucky and a sociologist who has examined environmental injustice and anti-government sentiment in rural communities. She co-authored a book in 2023 that provides an overview of right to farm laws. Intended to protect family farms, the laws have been used by agricultural corporations to boost profits, Ashwood found.

  • Alice Wong, a writer, an editor and a disability activist. Wong founded the Disability Visibility Project “to amplify the unfiltered voices of disabled people and explore the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender identity and disability,” according to the MacArthur Foundation. She has also brought attention to policies that adversely affect people with disabilities, including bans on drinking straws and health care systems that don’t require masks.

Other grant winners include artists, writers, an oceanographer, an evolutionary biologist, historians, a cabaret performer, a filmmaker and an astronomer.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. ‘Kennedy quiz’ stumps some federal judicial…

Judiciary

‘Kennedy quiz’ stumps some federal judicial nominees; subjects include collateral estoppel and Article V

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 28, 2024, 1:42 pm CST

Federal judicial nominees can expect a grilling on the law from Republican U.S. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Kennedy, a lawyer who was an adjunct law professor at Louisiana State University, asks nominees about legal concepts, the U.S. Constitution, recent U.S. Supreme Court cases and other legal information.

Bloomberg Law has the story.

Nick Xenakis, former general counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Bloomberg Law that every nominee he spoke with before their committee hearings was trying to get ready for the “Kennedy quiz.”

Kennedy asked one nominee of President Joe Biden who later won confirmation, Sara E. Hill, to define collateral estoppel, to contrast a stay order with an injunction, to explain multidistrict litigation and to answer questions about constitutional amendments, ABC 15 News reported in November.

But some nominees asked to withdraw their nominations following Kennedy’s questioning. Charnelle Bjelkengren, another nominee of Biden, was one of them. According to Bloomberg Law, she “flubbed a quiz about Articles II and V of the U.S. Constitution.”

Another was former Federal Election Commission chair Matthew Petersen, a nominee of former President Donald Trump. According to Bloomberg Law, he “wasn’t able to answer any Kennedy questions about trial procedure and the law. Petersen had exclusively practiced administrative law and never tried a case.”

Kennedy told Bloomberg Law that he taught law students for 15 years, “and these are the kinds of questions that I would expect my students to know the answer to.”

But critics say Kennedy’s quizzes don’t reflect the realities of judging.

Kennedy “doesn’t seem to recognize that judges have access to libraries,” said Jake Faleschini, justice program director at the Alliance for Justice, in an interview with Bloomberg Law. “It is far more important that judicial nominees have the humility and research skills to look up the issues in each case than to have memorized them before a hearing.”