WASHINGTON (AP) — Another major international law firm has reached a deal with President Donald Trump to dedicate at least $100 million in free legal services to causes such as supporting veterans and combating antisemitism, the White House announced Tuesday.
The agreement makes Willkie Farr & Gallagher the third law firm in the last two weeks to cut a deal with the White House to avert sanctions from the U.S. government.
It was reached just two days after leaders at Willkie learned that the White House intended to issue a executive order against the firm, an action that could have carried “potentially grave consequences,” according to an internal email from the firm's executive committee obtained by The Associated Press.
The resolution reflects the differing responses being taken by the legal community as Trump continues to target some of the world's most elite law firms and extract concessions from them, such as the renunciation of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations in hiring and promotion decisions. Many of the firms that have been the subject of Trump's executive orders are associated with lawyers who previously investigated him, either when he was president or between his terms in the White House.
Willkie is home to Doug Emhoff, the husband of 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and Timothy Heaphy, who was chief investigative counsel to the House of Representatives committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The firm also represented two former Georgia election workers in a successful defamation lawsuit against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Three of the targeted firms have now made deals with the White House — resolutions that critics within the legal community call a capitulation — but others have challenged them in court and have been successful in getting key portions of the edicts blocked.
The internal email from Willkie acknowledged that ambivalence.
“While the agreement ultimately reached with the Administration focuses on activities that are already in place at our Firm, similar agreements at peer firms have been publicly criticized, and there is heightened conversation across our industry as law firms grapple with the consequences of potential Executive Orders and the impact for their clients, their employees and their businesses,” the email said.
“In making this difficult decision, we concluded, after due consideration of the implications of each possible course of action, that accepting the Administration’s final proposal was the path that best serves our clients’ needs and protects the Firm’s various stakeholders, avoiding potentially grave consequences,” it added.
Leaders of Willkie learned Sunday that they would be targeted for an executive order like the one leveled at nearly a half-dozen other major firms over the last month, the email said. The White House then “outlined a proposed alternative” consisting of three principles on which an agreement could be based.
Emhoff made it known internally that he disagreed with the deal and told firm leadership they should fight, according to a person familiar with the situation who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The firm email downplayed the scope of reforms and suggested that the firm had simply agreed to continue its longstanding practices. That includes following “the law related to our employment practices," representing clients across varied political and ideological spectrums and continuing to “represent underrepresented individuals and groups.”
The White House, by contrast, portrayed the changes in more sweeping terms, saying Willkie had affirmed “its commitment to Merit-Based Hiring, Promotion, and Retention. Accordingly, the Firm will not engage in illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.”
The Trump executive orders have threatened the security clearances of attorneys at each of the targeted firms as well as the termination of federal contracts and access by employees to federal buildings.
Last Friday, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom agreed to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services to avert an executive order, following the path of Paul Weiss, a firm that cut a deal just a week after it was targeted. The Paul Weiss chairman has said the Trump action risked destroying the firm.
In some instances, federal judges have blocked key portions of the orders having to do with federal contracts and access to federal buildings from being enforced, as has happened in lawsuits brought by WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Perkins Coie.
WilmerHale is the firm where special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Trump during his first term, worked for years before retiring. Jenner & Block previously employed Andrew Weissmann, who was a top lawyer on Mueller's team, and Perkins Coie represented Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign.
The first firm to be targeted was Covington & Burling, which has offered legal services to special counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump in his second term.
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Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.