{"id":117253,"date":"2025-05-01T09:02:48","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T17:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/01\/skadden-and-davis-polk-turn-to-former-white-house-attorney-to-navigate-trumps-ire\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T09:02:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T17:02:48","slug":"skadden-and-davis-polk-turn-to-former-white-house-attorney-to-navigate-trumps-ire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/01\/skadden-and-davis-polk-turn-to-former-white-house-attorney-to-navigate-trumps-ire\/","title":{"rendered":"Skadden And Davis Polk Turn To Former White House Attorney To Navigate Trump\u2019s Ire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump\u2019s attacks on Biglaw <\/a>have left the industry scrambling, trying to figure out how to respond to a bully intent on building a war chest of pro bono services<\/a>. Too many firms are<\/a> making sucker deals<\/a> with terms that are constantly evolving<\/a>. And now we\u2019re getting more information on how exactly Biglaw firms are navigating this unique risk.<\/p>\n

According to reporting by<\/a> Bloomberg Law, both Skadden and Davis Polk hired the same lobbying firm \u2014 Miller Strategies \u2014 to plead their case. As you might guess from the firms\u2019 cowardly postures (Skadden inked one of the first prophylactic deals with Trump promising $100 million in pro bono payola<\/a>, while Davis Polk stripped their website of any reference to the firm\u2019s work on the Mueller investigation and is advising Trump\u2019s Truth Social in a recently announced deal), the folks they\u2019re getting advice from are big players in MAGA-land. Both firms tapped Trump fundraiser Jeff Miller and former Trump White House lawyer Stefan Passantino.<\/p>\n

Passantino\u2019s role advising witnesses called to testify in House Committee\u2019s January 6th investigation brought a lot of smoke to the Emory Law grad:<\/p>\n

\n

He left his role at Washington firm Michael Best & Friedrich in December 2022, after being accused of advising White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to mislead lawmakers. Passantino insisted Hutchinson was \u201ctruthful and cooperative\u201d with the committee. He later sued unsuccessfully over what he called a conspiracy to push the \u201cfalse narrative\u201d that he told Hutchinson to lie.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Skadden and Davis Polk aren\u2019t the only firms looking to MAGA faithful to get out of Trump\u2019s doghouse. Kirkland and Simpson Thacher each hired Ballard Partners<\/a>, a lobbying firm founded by a top Trump fundraiser, before capitulating to Trump.<\/p>\n

Earlier:<\/strong> Kirkland And Simpson Turned To Major Trump Fundraiser Before Bending A Knee<\/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 Skadden And Davis Polk Turn To Former White House Attorney To Navigate Trump\u2019s Ire<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Trump\u2019s attacks on Biglaw <\/a>have left the industry scrambling, trying to figure out how to respond to a bully intent on building a war chest of pro bono services<\/a>. Too many firms are<\/a> making sucker deals<\/a> with terms that are constantly evolving<\/a>. And now we\u2019re getting more information on how exactly Biglaw firms are navigating this unique risk.<\/p>\n

According to reporting by<\/a> Bloomberg Law, both Skadden and Davis Polk hired the same lobbying firm \u2014 Miller Strategies \u2014 to plead their case. As you might guess from the firms\u2019 cowardly postures (Skadden inked one of the first prophylactic deals with Trump promising $100 million in pro bono payola<\/a>, while Davis Polk stripped their website of any reference to the firm\u2019s work on the Mueller investigation and is advising Trump\u2019s Truth Social in a recently announced deal), the folks they\u2019re getting advice from are big players in MAGA-land. Both firms tapped Trump fundraiser Jeff Miller and former Trump White House lawyer Stefan Passantino.<\/p>\n

Passantino\u2019s role advising witnesses called to testify in House Committee\u2019s January 6th investigation brought a lot of smoke to the Emory Law grad:<\/p>\n

\n

He left his role at Washington firm Michael Best & Friedrich in December 2022, after being accused of advising White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to mislead lawmakers. Passantino insisted Hutchinson was \u201ctruthful and cooperative\u201d with the committee. He later sued unsuccessfully over what he called a conspiracy to push the \u201cfalse narrative\u201d that he told Hutchinson to lie.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Skadden and Davis Polk aren\u2019t the only firms looking to MAGA faithful to get out of Trump\u2019s doghouse. Kirkland and Simpson Thacher each hired Ballard Partners<\/a>, a lobbying firm founded by a top Trump fundraiser, before capitulating to Trump.<\/p>\n

Earlier:<\/strong> Kirkland And Simpson Turned To Major Trump Fundraiser Before Bending A Knee<\/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":"

Trump\u2019s attacks on Biglaw have left the industry scrambling, trying to figure out how to respond to a bully intent on building a war chest of pro bono services. Too many firms are making sucker deals with terms that are constantly evolving. And now we\u2019re getting more information on how exactly Biglaw firms are navigating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":117237,"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-117253","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\/05\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-GXL88k.jpeg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117253","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=117253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}