An eminent international law firm has concluded an agreement withPresident Donald TrumpFriday to devote at least $ 100 million to free legal services and to examine its hiring practices, avoiding a decree punishing like those directed in nearly half a dozen other major legal institutions in recent weeks.
The agreement with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom was announced only a few hours after two other law firms continued its doors before a federal court for decrees that threatened the suspension of the security authorizations of their lawyers and their access to federal buildings. Friday evening, the judges temporarily blocked the application of the key parts of the decrees against these companies, Wilmerhale and Jenner & Block.
Contrasting approaches reflect divisions within the legal community on the advisability of fighting or negotiating while Trump seeks to extract major concessions from some of the most important law firms in the world and, in some cases, punish them about their association with prosecutors who previously investigated. Besides Skadden Arps, another company,Paul Weissconcluded an agreement with the White House, an agreement which caused a major reaction last week to the lawyers who declared that the capitulation had created a bad precedent.
In a message to his company, the executive partner of Skadden Arps, Jeremy London, said that the cabinet had recently learned that the Trump administration intended to issue a decree which targets it on its pro Bono legal work and its initiatives of diversity, equity and inclusion.
“Faced with this information, we carefully thought about the right track for us, and the answer was not obvious. We were thought out and deliberate to determine the steps we could make, knowing that the decisions with which we were struggling with the Associated Press.
He added that the cabinet had chosen to establish negotiations with the administration in the hope of preventing the publication of a decree.
“We have concluded the agreement that the president announced today because, in the face of alternatives, it has become clear that it was the best way to protect our customers, our employees and our company,” he wrote.
As part of the agreement, Skadden Arps has agreed, among other things, to provide at least $ 100 million in Pro Bono legal services linked to causes, including veterans and counters anti-Semitism. He also undertook to initiate the hiring based on merit and to use an independent lawyer to ensure that his employment practices are legal and do not count on diversity, equity and inclusion considerations.
The two companies that continued on Friday, Jenner & Block and Wilmerhale, argued in their complaints that the orders equivalent to an unprecedented assault on the legal system and represent an unconstitutional form of presidential reprisals.
“Our constitution, from top to bottom, prohibits the government from attempts to punish citizens and lawyers according to the customers they represent, the positions they defend, the opinions they express and the people with whom they associate,” said the complaint of Jenner & Block, filed before the Washington Federal Court.
After arguments on Friday, two different federal judges of Washington granted temporary ban requested by companies to block the application of the main parts of the order dealing with access to federal buildings and government contracts. US District Judge Richard Leon, in power in the case of Wilmerhale, said that the company “faces economic damage – it faces paralyzing losses and that its very survival is at stake”.
“We appreciate the rapid action of the Court to preserve the law of our customers to the lawyer and to the recognition of the unconstitutional nature of the decree and its frightening effect on the legal system. The court’s decision to block the main provisions of the order justified our basic press release from the first Wilmerhale amendment in a declaration.
Companies argued that the decrees, published earlier in the week, had already affected their business, Jenner & Block saying that a customer was informed by the Ministry of Justice that the company cannot attend a next meeting in the building.
“This customer must therefore either attend the meeting without an external lawyer or should keep new external advice before April 3,” said the trial.
The complaint of Wilmerhale raises similar concerns, calling it as a blatant violation of the rights of the company.
“It imposes serious consequences without notice or any possibility of being heard; He uses a vague and expansive language which does not adequately inform Wilmerhale (or its customers) from what driving has triggered these extraordinary sanctions; And he unjustly single Wilmerhale according to his ties perceived to individuals and the defisting causes, ”says the trial.
Targeted law firms have adopted different approaches to decrees that threaten to upset their business model and cool their legal practice.
Earlier this month,PERKINS COOIE law firmAlso challenged Trump’s order before the court and managed to bring a judge to temporarily block the application. Paul Weiss’s business, on the other hand,Cut an agreement with the White HouseA few days after being submitted to a decree, its president saying that the order presented an “existential crisis” for the company and that he was not sure that he could have survived an extended fight with the Trump administration.
The decree against Jenner & Block this week came from the fact that the cabinet used to employ Andrew Weissmann, a lawyer who satThe team of special lawyer Robert MuellerThis investigated Trump during his first mandate on the potential links between his 2016 campaign and Russia. Weissmann, a public target frequenting Trump’s anger, left the company several years ago.
Mueller retired from Wilmerhale, but the executive decree of the Thursday White House mentions it as well as another retired partner and a current partner who all sat on the Mueller team.
“While most of the disputes require a discovery to discover the reason for reprisals, the order does not hide its intention to punish Wilmerhale for its past and current representations of customers in the courts of the nation and for its perceived link with the views that Mr. Mueller expressed as a special council,” said the Wilmerhale trial.
The first executive decree targeted Covington & BurlingA company that provided a legal representation to the Jack Smith special council, who investigated Trump during the Biden administration and filed two separate criminal cases that were abandoned after the Trump elections last November.
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
