{"id":122679,"date":"2025-06-11T06:02:35","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T14:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/11\/were-biglaws-pro-bono-payola-deals-with-trump-vague-on-purpose\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T06:02:35","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T14:02:35","slug":"were-biglaws-pro-bono-payola-deals-with-trump-vague-on-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/11\/were-biglaws-pro-bono-payola-deals-with-trump-vague-on-purpose\/","title":{"rendered":"Were Biglaw\u2019s Pro Bono Payola Deals With Trump Vague On Purpose?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s wise to be as vague as possible, which explains the firms\u2019 lack of any effort to reduce whatever the arrangement is to writing. If you start negotiating with Trump, then you wind up identifying what he may conclude are gaps in what you\u2019ve got, and then he demands more.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Stephen Gillers<\/a>, a professor at New York University Law School, in comments given to Bloomberg Law<\/a>, on the perhaps intentionally vague pro bono payola deals<\/a> that nine Biglaw firms signed with the Trump administration, pledging $940 million in free legal services. Trump has yet to attempt to enforce those deals, and the Biglaw firms in question aren\u2019t pushing the issue, either. Gillers points out that the agreements\u2019 vagueness may come back to bite the law firms, noting, \u201cTrump realized in the midst of these negotiations that he might want to use the work of these law firms after he\u2019s no longer president in situations that could not even remotely be called pro bono.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"Staci
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Were Biglaw\u2019s Pro Bono Payola Deals With Trump Vague On Purpose?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s wise to be as vague as possible, which explains the firms\u2019 lack of any effort to reduce whatever the arrangement is to writing. If you start negotiating with Trump, then you wind up identifying what he may conclude are gaps in what you\u2019ve got, and then he demands more.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Stephen Gillers<\/a>, a professor at New York University Law School, in comments given to Bloomberg Law<\/a>, on the perhaps intentionally vague pro bono payola deals<\/a> that nine Biglaw firms signed with the Trump administration, pledging $940 million in free legal services. Trump has yet to attempt to enforce those deals, and the Biglaw firms in question aren\u2019t pushing the issue, either. Gillers points out that the agreements\u2019 vagueness may come back to bite the law firms, noting, \u201cTrump realized in the midst of these negotiations that he might want to use the work of these law firms after he\u2019s no longer president in situations that could not even remotely be called pro bono.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"Staci
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. It\u2019s wise to be as vague as possible, which explains the firms\u2019 lack of any effort to reduce whatever the arrangement is to writing. If you start negotiating with Trump, then you wind up identifying what he may conclude are gaps in what you\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":122598,"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-122679","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\/06\/Staci-Zaretsky-iA6Er3.jpeg?fit=150%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122679","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=122679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}