One of the major themes since Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection has been how established institutions have acquiesced to demands, including ABC’s brief silencing of Jimmy Kimmel, Paramount’s 60 Minutes settlement, and Meta’s $25 million account suspension payout, not to mention the ongoing attacks on funding of academic institutions. In early 2025, legal firm Paul Weiss,which built its reputation on a mix of elite corporate litigation and defense of civil liberties, was targeted by the newly installed Trump administration for engaging in lawsuits against the government. As opposed to fighting that arguably illegal attack in court, Paul Weiss scrambled to make a deal with Trump that roiled the entire legal community. According to the New York Times on Sunday, that drive to capitulate lays bare a firm was caught between its progressive ideals and the business demand for corporate practice.
While the firm has fought against the practice of separating migrant children from their parents, it also served as outside counsel for Apollo Global Management when co-founder Leon Black faced scrutiny for his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. It successfully sued a chapter of neo-fascist group the Proud Boys following an attack on a Black church, even as it worked on behalf of a client to suppress reporting on the financial collapse of Caesars Entertainment.
But despite Paul Weiss’s presence on all sides of philosophical and political divides, Trump singled it out for sanctions on March 14, 2025, writing in an executive order that it and other firms had been “undermining the judicial process and in the destruction of bedrock American principles.” Just a few days later, the NYT reported at the time, managing partner Brad Karp sent an email to its lawyers saying “We initially prepared to challenge the executive order in court, and a team of Paul, Weiss attorneys prepared a lawsuit in the finest traditions of the firm.“
Then, according to a Times report from 2025, Karp asked billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a longtime client of the firm, to broker a meeting for him with Trump. By the end of the Oval Office conversation, Karp had promised to provide “$40 million in pro bono legal services on issues the president has championed,” among other concessions. Trump rescinded the order soon after.
The swift capitulation put many other law firms at a disadvantage. Seemingly emboldened by the deal with Paul Weiss, Trump followed up with an additional executive order calling on then-US Attorney General Pam Bondi to “seek sanctions” against additional attorneys who pursued litigation against his administration.
In the year since Karp’s visit to the White House, eight other firms have followed its lead, agreeing to a total of over $1 billion in pro bono work for causes near and dear to the president, the Times reported today.
The dominos had been falling inside Paul Weiss for years, past and present staffers at the firm told the Times, a battle between lawyers interested in idealistic litigation and corporate-minded attorneys with a focus on mergers and business.
The face of the corporate side is Scott Barshay, an attorney hired by Karp in 2016 who succeeded him as chairman this February, after the release of the so-called Epstein Files revealed Karp’s multiple communications with Epstein. According to the NYT, Barshay had raised concerns about Lex Korberg, Paul Weiss’s first openly transgender partner, saying clients might be uncomfortable with a trans attorney. Korberg departed the firm over Barshay’s opposition to social justice work, and agreed to a “a secret $3.5 million deal in 2023, never previously revealed, under which Mx. Korberg agreed not to sue or disparage the firm.”
