{"id":114491,"date":"2025-04-11T08:02:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T16:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/04\/11\/3-more-major-biglaw-firms-are-looking-to-bow-to-trump\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T08:02:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T16:02:42","slug":"3-more-major-biglaw-firms-are-looking-to-bow-to-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/04\/11\/3-more-major-biglaw-firms-are-looking-to-bow-to-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"3 More Major Biglaw Firms Are Looking To Bow To Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
(Photo by Win McNamee\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Trump administration boasted that they\u2019re about to have a $1 billion<\/a> war chest in pro bono payola<\/a> (that Donald Trump, at least, believes can be used for legal costs at his sole discretion<\/a>). But only $340 million in deals has been announced thus far. Kirkland is reportedly<\/a> in talks to join the ranks of Biglaw firms surrendering to Trump, but where would the rest of the payments come from?<\/p>\n

Well, it seems three more firms are in talks to bend a knee to the administration. According to a report<\/a> from Law.com, Latham & Watkins, A&O Shearman, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett are the firms looking into settling \u201cgrievances\u201d with the Trump administration in exchange for their principles. The cost may be going up though \u2014 in a press conference on Thursday, Donald Trump said the firms currently negotiating deals will pay $125 million in pro bono payola \u2014 up from the $100 million Skadden<\/a>, Milbank<\/a>, and Willkie<\/a> are paying and significantly more than the $40 million Paul Weiss<\/a> (the first firm to fall) is paying. Hope the associates at those firms like negotiating loser trade deals.<\/p>\n

In addition to avoiding the financial fallout<\/a> of a potential Executive Order targeting the firms, the new deals are also reportedly to resolve the EEOC investigation Trump ordered<\/a> on their firms.<\/p>\n

In the face of this cowardice, it bears repeating that every federal judge (both Republican- and Democrat-appointed<\/a>) has said the Executive Orders are likely unconstitutional<\/a>. And the reputational<\/a> harm for the firms<\/a> that are selling out<\/a> the rule of law continues.<\/p>\n

Track how Biglaw is responding to the attack on the industry here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post 3 More Major Biglaw Firms Are Looking To Bow To Trump<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
(Photo by Win McNamee\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Trump administration boasted that they\u2019re about to have a $1 billion<\/a> war chest in pro bono payola<\/a> (that Donald Trump, at least, believes can be used for legal costs at his sole discretion<\/a>). But only $340 million in deals has been announced thus far. Kirkland is reportedly<\/a> in talks to join the ranks of Biglaw firms surrendering to Trump, but where would the rest of the payments come from?<\/p>\n

Well, it seems three more firms are in talks to bend a knee to the administration. According to a report<\/a> from Law.com, Latham & Watkins, A&O Shearman, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett are the firms looking into settling \u201cgrievances\u201d with the Trump administration in exchange for their principles. The cost may be going up though \u2014 in a press conference on Thursday, Donald Trump said the firms currently negotiating deals will pay $125 million in pro bono payola \u2014 up from the $100 million Skadden<\/a>, Milbank<\/a>, and Willkie<\/a> are paying and significantly more than the $40 million Paul Weiss<\/a> (the first firm to fall) is paying. Hope the associates at those firms like negotiating loser trade deals.<\/p>\n

In addition to avoiding the financial fallout<\/a> of a potential Executive Order targeting the firms, the new deals are also reportedly to resolve the EEOC investigation Trump ordered<\/a> on their firms.<\/p>\n

In the face of this cowardice, it bears repeating that every federal judge (both Republican- and Democrat-appointed<\/a>) has said the Executive Orders are likely unconstitutional<\/a>. And the reputational<\/a> harm for the firms<\/a> that are selling out<\/a> the rule of law continues.<\/p>\n

Track how Biglaw is responding to the attack on the industry here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @[email\u00a0protected].<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photo by Win McNamee\/Getty Images) The Trump administration boasted that they\u2019re about to have a $1 billion war chest in pro bono payola (that Donald Trump, at least, believes can be used for legal costs at his sole discretion). But only $340 million in deals has been announced thus far. Kirkland is reportedly in talks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":114463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-BKbsAq.jpeg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}