In 2018, Brad Karp, chairman of the legislation agency Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and Gary Wingens, chairman of Lowenstein Sandler, denounced President Donald Trump’s immigration insurance policies of household separation and detention as “unlawful and immoral” in a New York Occasions op-ed. That coverage of Trump’s first time period, Karp and Wingens promised, could be countered by an “army of lawyers,” led by their companies, combating on behalf of “the poor and the vulnerable against targeted governmental abuses.”
“The world is watching, and the private bar is mobilizing to serve the thousands who have been imperiled by the Trump administration — and to ensure that the rule of law is protected as well,” Karp wrote.
For his and his agency’s efforts combating for immigrant rights, reproductive rights and gun management, Karp was named legal professional of the 12 months by New York Regulation Journal in 2018. As of March 2024, nonetheless, the press launch touting this achievement is now nowhere to be discovered on Paul Weiss’ web site. The identical goes for a press launch selling a New York Occasions article from 2018 about Paul Weiss’ work combating the primary Trump administration’s immigration coverage.
These are simply two examples of dozens of press releases and pages touting the agency’s professional bono work on immigration, reproductive rights, countering right-wing extremists and voting rights which have disappeared from the agency’s website online within the weeks since Trump first issued an govt order in search of to destroy the practically 150-year outdated agency.
Paul Weiss discovered that the authorized group wouldn’t circle the wagons to guard their very own. As an alternative of becoming a member of collectively in assist, different large legislation companies circled like vultures, making an attempt to poach the agency’s purchasers and legal professionals. So, Paul Weiss determined to strike a deal.
On March 21, Trump rescinded the manager order after the agency dedicated to aligning its range insurance policies with the administration and offering $40 million in professional bono providers to the “mutually agreed upon” priorities with the administration.
Erik McGregor by way of Getty Photographs
The deal despatched shockwaves by means of the authorized group, together with amongst ex-Paul Weiss legal professionals and employees. It appeared as if the agency, lengthy identified for its dedication to range and progressive causes, had bent the knee. The choice to capitulate now each undermines the agency’s means to counter the administration’s extra and probably takes away a big group of expert legal professionals from the professional bono work that smaller nonprofits depend on to battle again towards authorities abuses of rights.
“It’s really gutting and it goes to the core of what we thought this firm was,” mentioned Elizabeth Grossman, a former Paul Weiss affiliate who now serves as president of the Illinois chapter of watchdog group Frequent Trigger.
In response to the agency’s take care of Trump, Grossman led a public letter to Karp from greater than 140 former Paul Weiss associates and staffers decrying the deal. That letter known as the deal “a permanent stain on the face of a great firm that sought to gain a profit by forfeiting its soul.” Paul Weiss didn’t reply to a request for remark.
“It really sent a shockwave down my spine to know that an entity that had the power to stand up to the executive and for the rule of law simply declined to do so,” mentioned Nora Ahmed, a letter signatory who labored as a litigation legal professional at Paul Weiss from 2012-2014 and 2015-2020 and is now authorized director for the Louisiana chapter of the ACLU.
“Calling out injustice out loud is different than whispering it behind closed doors.”
– Erin Elmouji, former Paul Weiss lawyer
The agency’s “soul,” in accordance with these former Paul Weiss legal professionals, resides in its professional bono work in assist of progressive causes, exemplified by its opposition to the primary Trump administration’s insurance policies. The deal “will have no effect on our work and our shared culture and values” and the agency will proceed its professional bono work, Karp insisted in an inner e-mail to employees. However, former agency legal professionals consider which you can’t have it each methods.
“You’d have to be kidding yourself to think the firm can take an openly hostile position to a government overreach in the way that they did during the first administration,” mentioned Erin Elmouji, a former Paul Weiss lawyer from 2012-2018 who signed the letter to Karp. “This has signaled that they will capitulate again. They will appease the government if they need to.”
It’s an existential query not only for the agency itself, however for all of the nonprofits that depend on their professional bono providers in difficult administration insurance policies.
“Having Paul Weiss bend the knee like this is going to create a ripple effect, and more and more firms, if they follow suit, then these nonprofits that are the last defense against government overreach have fewer and fewer private-sector firms to call on to help marshal this big impact litigation,” Elmouji mentioned.
Steven Ferdman by way of Getty Photographs
Paul Weiss isn’t alone amongst legislation companies focused by Trump for punishment. Different Trump govt orders focused Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie and, on Tuesday, Jenner & Block. However how the companies have responded have various. To this point, solely Perkins Coie has challenged these orders in court docket, profitable a short lived restraining order from a federal district court docket choose who mentioned the order “sent chills down my spine.” Neither Covington & Burling nor Jenner & Block have indicated but whether or not they may be part of Perkins Coie’s lawsuit.
Even past a willingness by some companies to capitulate, the shortage of unified opposition within the white-shoe authorized group is more likely to have a big affect on how the nonprofits that wish to deliver authorized challenges are in a position to function.
“A lot of these organizations are going to want to partner with other law firms,” Grossman mentioned. “Even if Paul Weiss was able to work with them, they’re going to say, ‘I can’t work with a firm with these kind of compromised values.’”
As a part of its professional bono work, Paul Weiss has labored alongside such large nonprofit advocacy teams as Deliberate Parenthood, ACLU, Heart for Reproductive Rights, Frequent Trigger, Brennan Heart for Justice, Legal professionals’ Committee on Civil Rights and Heart for Constitutional Rights in addition to smaller immigrant rights teams like Make the Street NY, Youngsters in Want of Protection, Ladies’s Refugee Fee, The Door and Justice in Movement, amongst many others.
In an indication of how fraught the present state of affairs is, simply two of those dozen teams responded to a request for touch upon whether or not they have considerations in regards to the deal Paul Weiss made with the Trump administration. The Heart for Reproductive Rights declined to remark, however did present the group’s assertion opposing Trump’s assaults on the authorized career. Frequent Trigger was the one one to offer a press release particularly addressing Paul Weiss.
“We hope that Paul Weiss will recommit to supporting organizations like ours but it is hard to trust that they wouldn’t walk away from us if the President didn’t like what they were doing,” Frequent Trigger President Virginia Kase Solomón mentioned in a press release. “There are many talented attorneys at Paul Weiss who want to do this work and the better question we believe is do they want to work for a firm that will acquiesce to an authoritarian.”
To this point, Paul Weiss legal professionals stay concerned within the professional bono work they have been beforehand engaged on. Ahmed was joined by a Paul Weiss legal professional when she attended Supreme Court docket arguments on Monday within the racial discrimination redistricting case of Louisiana v. Callais.
“The party line is largely that nothing has changed in terms of the ability to work with them going forward,” Ahmed mentioned.
The most important downside, nonetheless, in accordance with former Paul Weiss legal professionals, is that although Karp mentioned in his inner e-mail to employees that the agency had put the risk from the administration behind it, Trump can all the time change the phrases of any deal if he thinks the opposite get together isn’t dwelling as much as his expectations.
“They’re somewhat hostage now or there’s an appearance of being a hostage,” mentioned Jonathan Siegfried, who was a lawyer at Paul Weiss from 1975-1981 and signed Grossman’s letter.
Any future break with the administration could lead on Trump to reimpose what Karp known as “a crisis” and threaten the agency once more.
Francis Chung/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs
That’s evidenced by the deletions throughout the agency’s web site. Along with the removing of dozens of press releases touting the agency’s work on immigration, voting rights and different points, the agency’s professional bono touchdown web page now not lists its areas of labor, together with these beforehand titled Defending Immigrants & Households, Reproductive Justice and Supporting Households, LGBTQ+, Defending the Proper to Vote and Combatting Hate. The web site for the agency’s Heart to Fight Hate, which was solely launched in March 2024 and litigated instances towards the Proud Boys and white supremacists, now not exists. Hyperlinks to it on the agency’s web site have disappeared.
The agency could effectively nonetheless tackle professional bono instances in assist of immigrant rights or different points, Siegfried mentioned, however, “there’s a difference between doing them proudly because they’re the right thing to do and being very quiet and silent about them.”
“Calling out injustice out loud is different than whispering it behind closed doors,” Elmouji added.
The web site deletions spoke on to the most important shock and disappointment that the previous Paul Weiss legal professionals felt once they heard the information in regards to the deal.
“We would have thought that Paul Weiss would have been in the forefront of not pulling those pages down and instead speaking out and rallying firms to provide this representation that’s needed now more than ever,” Siegfried mentioned.
The failure to take action promotes what Elmouji calls “trickle-down cowardice.” Paul Weiss had the repute and cash to face as much as the administration the place smaller companies and the nonprofits who rent their legal professionals for professional bono work don’t. By bowing to Trump and by censoring their web site, the agency has set an instance and a precedent that trickles right down to these much less in a position to battle again.
“We’re already seeing a lot of nonprofits and organizations taking these steps to scrub their websites while still professing to do the work, but we’re just going to hide it or we’re going to take the words down,” Elmouji mentioned. “I think it’s wrong when anybody does it, but I think it’s particularly wrong when lawyers do it.”
Siegfried puzzled what Ted Sorensen, the previous Paul Weiss lawyer, aide to John F. Kennedy and ghostwriter of Kennedy’s well-known Profiles in Braveness who died in 2010, would take into consideration the agency’s stunning “surrender,” as Siegfried known as it, if he have been round.
“Standing up when the stakes are very high — when the stakes are personally high. That’s what a profile in courage is,” Siegfried mentioned. “And that is what, to me, remains the great disappointment.”
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For Ahmed, the ache she feels from Paul Weiss’ capitulation is deeply private.
“The thing that makes me so sad is Paul Weiss made me the lawyer that I am today,” Ahmed mentioned. “The sadness comes from the fact that I know there are incredible people at that firm who I imagine still today believe so strongly in the civil rights and civil liberties of the people in our nation, including immigrants, and I don’t want that to get lost.”
