Law Firms Made Deals With Trump. Now He Wants More From Them.

[highplainsdem]

Source: NYT

-snip-

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.

-snip-

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.

-snip-

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

---

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.

[Ray Bruns]

1. That's what happens when you climb in bed with the Mafia.

[slightlv]

13. True! Or when they dance with the devil.

Hes seen as evangelicals 2nd coming. They're too blind and brainwashed to see he's really the anti christ they've all walked about for years... and they've sold their souls to him and he'll. Makes me almost wish I believed.

[Fla Dem]

2. They got drawn into the nasty poisonous spider's web, and now are trapped.

[republianmushroom]

3. Ha Ha Ha and it will get worst.

You sold your souls dudes, if you had one.

[atreides1]

4. There's a name for these firms

COLLABORATORS or QUISLINGS...

[Karadeniz]

5. Why cant they stop these agreements?

[Ms. Toad]

23. Since he's at least talking about changing the terms,

They may be able to. Under contract law, one side is not entitled to unilaterally change h the terms of the agreement.

[lonely bird]

6. What the actual fuck?

What did these naive idiots think would happen?

Time and again some fool thinks they have made a “deal” with Trump only to have Trump fuck them over. You know what he is. You have seen it for years. Yet you think somehow this time will be different. You think that somehow you are special compared to all the other fools he has screwed.

As for trade deals? I thought Trump was the great deal maker so what does he need these lawyers for?

[Rebl2]

47. How is

it that just everyday people know better than to make a deal with this devil and these supposed smart lawyers are dumb enough to make a sketchy deal with the orange one.

[PSPS]

7. Blackmailers will always keep demanding more.

[get the red out]

8. Ya don't say?

Give that SOB an inch and he takes a light-year. I thought that was common knowledge by now?

[Bengus81]

43. Yeah...yet those smart lawyers couldn't figure that out?

[SergeStorms]

9. Extortion, plain and simple.

The imperial mango's lawlessness continues, without consequences.

[Journeyman]

10. Goes to show: Even the well-educated can be dumb as a stump . . .

[Owens]

11. I wouldn't trust any of these lawfirms

They are probably violating clients confidentality and giving information to Trump and his regime to use for blackmail and extortion

[malthaussen]

12. Once you pay the Danegald, you never get rid of the Dane, you stupid assholes. n/t

[Pas-de-Calais]

14. Law firms tarnished their establishments forever

Or
Until they show spine
And
Take them to court over this

Per Rachael Maddow last nite

[surfered]

15. Trump can't be trusted to honor a deal. He renegotiated NAFTA with Canada and Mexico in 2018.

Now he’s unilaterally broken that agreement by imposing tariffs on their goods, saying the deal he negotiated in 2018 was a terrible deal.

It’s what he does. He’s untrustworthy.

[Hieronymus Phact]

16. It needs to be asked

Where are these agreements?
Who are they with? trump, or the US Govt?
Can someone else see them?
What's been agreed to?

[tishaLA]

17. My hope was that the firms would intentionally fuck up

And file briefs/make arguments in court that were pedestrian and in contravention of established precedent -- a kind of elaborate ruse. But now that I think about it, doing so would probably just mean he'd try to extract more from them, as if that isn't already the plan.

[Gaugamela]

18. Pretty soon they'll be defending concentration camps and mowing the lawn at Mar-a-Lago on the weekends.

[NoMoreRepugs]

19. Wait wait wait - don't these "Prestigious" law firms think they are the smartest guys in the room - ALWAYS??

DumbFucks…..

[calimary]

20. The donald wants them securely on a leash.

Why they’re giving in so easily is beyond me. Fear and intimidation can be awfully powerful weapons.

[Hekate]

21. There is no spoon long enough to sup with the Devil

Any firm that tries to appease trump will live to regret it deeply

[Ms. Toad]

22. That's not what they agreed to - but when you make a deal with a devil,

Especially one who is known to renege on deals . . .

It will be interesting to see how this plays out for firms who capitulated. If he succeeds in changing the terms of the deal, it does make the "pro bono" proffer a lot more damaging to the firms, since (as others have pointed out) if the service is owed to Trump/the administration it creates a lot of conflicts with the traditional work of these firms (which is often on the opposite side of the v from the government). Ironically, it was those very clients that some of those firms claimed as the reason they needed to make the deals in the first place.

[NotHardly]

29. Reputations in the toilet...why would anyone else ever hire those bozos?

[Ms. Toad]

32. In theory, they were trying to keep the clients they already have-

many of whom were in fields that required their attorneys have access to security clearances and government facilities.

But no one who cares about democracy should be giving any business to law firms, colleges, media - those firewalls of democracy - when they just flop over and play dead.

[in2herbs]

30. Also, how do these deals not expose the lawyers to treason the same as everyone else in F47s regime?

[Ms. Toad]

36. Treason is a pretty hard case to make, even against the administration.

Trump was elected. Congress was elected. So far, Congress is ratifying Trump's power grab by waiving its power to require a vote on ending his emergency resolutions (the authority for most of what he is doing).

Treason isn't just doing things that turn out badly for the US (like tariffs that tank the stock market). It requires waging war on the US, or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. Despite trump's cozy relationship with Putin, it almost certainly doesn't (yet anyway) rise to the level of treason.

[Shipwack]

24. "I have altered the deal...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kgfnKdTxLNiENZj49

[Demobrat]

25. They bent over a barrel and pulled their pants down.

What did they think would happen?

[Ocelot II]

26. The bully won't be satisfied with taking your lunch money today.

Give it up today and he’ll demand it every day.

[NotHardly]

27. Bend the knee w/Trump and get your heads chopped off ...should be alarm bells blaring

I wonder what “goods” Trump has on them?

[in2herbs]

28. How are the lawyers in these lawfirms helping F47 not subjecting them to treason the same as anyone else

in the regime?

[BigMin28]

31. Donnie owns them

now.

[BidenRocks]

33. So much college wasted!

You dumbfucks never learned that you,
NEVER APPEASE A DICTATOR!
Jump now because you will hate yourself for life kissing the orange ass.
HE OWNS YOU!! Fucking no standards. They should be disbarred for teaming with a dictator.
RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE you rich bastards.
Sold out by lawyers.
Fitting if the trials were held in Nuremberg, Pa.

[patphil]

34. These companies destroyed their reputations, and will lose a tremendous amount of business because of it.

[calimary]

38. One can hope, anyway.

I WISH and HOPE these cavers will get what’s ultimately coming to them, but they tend to be snakes. And snakes have a way of slithering under cover.

[mackdaddy]

35. 'You give Trump an inch, and he Takes your Life!'

Ben Meiselas on Meidas touch says this and it is absolutely true.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

37. Who is surprised by this?

Once you give into a blackmailer, then you should expect further demands

[thought crime]

45. And it's run-of-the-mill fascism.

Every lawyer becomes a Mob lawyer.

[Martin68]

39. Appeasing an authoritarian near turns out well. They take it was a sign of weakness (which it is) and will

continue making ever more stringent demands.

[muriel_volestrangler]

40. Leavitt claims the deals are "fully binding"; article says it's unclear if they were signed written

or just "handshake" agreements. It could make a lot of difference.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

41. Trump's deals with big law firms could be 'unravelling': NYT reporter

trump never honors his agreements/contracts and so this is not surprising
https://bsky.app/profile/morgfair.bsky.social/post/3lmxdazf2cs27

Link to tweet

However, it seems that Trump and his White House are taking a far more expansive view of the agreements and the Times reports that the administration could even try to force the firms to represent Trump or his allies in criminal cases free of charge.

"The emerging gap between what the firms initially thought they agreed to and what Mr. Trump says they can be used for shows how the deals did little to insulate them from his whims," the Times reports. "Further demands on the firms from Mr. Trump could raise the potential for conflicts with paying clients and could further fuel internal dissension."

This uncertainty is compounded by the fact that it's not known if the deals the firms reached with Trump were formal written agreements or handshake deals.

Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, tells the Times that he thinks that the firms did not properly understand the type of administration they were dealing with when they decided to cave to Trump's threats.

"They thought they made one-shot deals which they would fulfill,” he said. “But the administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude.”

[Bengus81]

42. Did Doug Emhoff quit yet? Not a bridge too far yet?

[Blasphemer]

44. And law students are refusing to work for those firms. They screwed up royally. nt

[Rebl2]

46. They should have

known better.