Law Firms Made Deals With Trump. Now He Wants More From Them.
Source: NYT
-snip-
Over the last week, he has suggested that the firms will be drafted into helping him negotiate trade deals.
He has mused about having them help with his goal of reviving the coal industry.
And he has hinted that he sees the promises of nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services that he has extracted from the elite law firms including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher as a legal war chest to be used as he wishes.
-snip-
But now that nine firms have agreed to deals and committed to nearly $1 billion worth of pro bono legal work, some Trump advisers have started having discussions about a range of options for what the firms lawyers can be deployed to work on, according to two people briefed on the matter. That work could include sending the lawyers to help Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency or deploying them to aid the Justice Department, they said.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/us/politics/law-firms-deals-trump.html
The article quotes a professor of law at Yale saying the firms thought they'd made one-shot deals, while "the administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude."
And some of those fools even rushed to capitulate to Trump before he directly threatened them.
At least this is a warning to law firms and others thinking of capitulating in the hope it will end with the first things Trump demands.

Ray Bruns
(5,153 posts)slightlv
(5,404 posts)Hes seen as evangelicals 2nd coming. They're too blind and brainwashed to see he's really the anti christ they've all walked about for years... and they've sold their souls to him and he'll. Makes me almost wish I believed.
Fla Dem
(26,544 posts)
republianmushroom
(19,581 posts)You sold your souls dudes, if you had one.
atreides1
(16,628 posts)COLLABORATORS or QUISLINGS...
Karadeniz
(24,242 posts)Ms. Toad
(36,702 posts)They may be able to. Under contract law, one side is not entitled to unilaterally change h the terms of the agreement.
lonely bird
(2,266 posts)What did these naive idiots think would happen?
Time and again some fool thinks they have made a deal with Trump only to have Trump fuck them over. You know what he is. You have seen it for years. Yet you think somehow this time will be different. You think that somehow you are special compared to all the other fools he has screwed.
As for trade deals? I thought Trump was the great deal maker so what does he need these lawyers for?
it that just everyday people know better than to make a deal with this devil and these supposed smart lawyers are dumb enough to make a sketchy deal with the orange one.
PSPS
(14,487 posts)get the red out
(13,712 posts)Give that SOB an inch and he takes a light-year. I thought that was common knowledge by now?
Bengus81
(8,713 posts)SergeStorms
(19,585 posts)The imperial mango's lawlessness continues, without consequences.
Journeyman
(15,311 posts)Owens
(502 posts)They are probably violating clients confidentality and giving information to Trump and his regime to use for blackmail and extortion
malthaussen
(18,078 posts)Pas-de-Calais
(10,098 posts)Or
Until they show spine
And
Take them to court over this
Per Rachael Maddow last nite
surfered
(6,318 posts)Now hes unilaterally broken that agreement by imposing tariffs on their goods, saying the deal he negotiated in 2018 was a terrible deal.
Its what he does. Hes untrustworthy.
Hieronymus Phact
(582 posts)Where are these agreements?
Who are they with? trump, or the US Govt?
Can someone else see them?
What's been agreed to?
tishaLA
(14,614 posts)And file briefs/make arguments in court that were pedestrian and in contravention of established precedent -- a kind of elaborate ruse. But now that I think about it, doing so would probably just mean he'd try to extract more from them, as if that isn't already the plan.
Gaugamela
(2,804 posts)NoMoreRepugs
(11,230 posts)DumbFucks ..
calimary
(85,966 posts)Why theyre giving in so easily is beyond me. Fear and intimidation can be awfully powerful weapons.
Hekate
(97,342 posts)Any firm that tries to appease trump will live to regret it deeply
Ms. Toad
(36,702 posts)Especially one who is known to renege on deals . . .
It will be interesting to see how this plays out for firms who capitulated. If he succeeds in changing the terms of the deal, it does make the "pro bono" proffer a lot more damaging to the firms, since (as others have pointed out) if the service is owed to Trump/the administration it creates a lot of conflicts with the traditional work of these firms (which is often on the opposite side of the v from the government). Ironically, it was those very clients that some of those firms claimed as the reason they needed to make the deals in the first place.
NotHardly
(2,072 posts)Ms. Toad
(36,702 posts)many of whom were in fields that required their attorneys have access to security clearances and government facilities.
But no one who cares about democracy should be giving any business to law firms, colleges, media - those firewalls of democracy - when they just flop over and play dead.
in2herbs
(3,700 posts)Ms. Toad
(36,702 posts)Trump was elected. Congress was elected. So far, Congress is ratifying Trump's power grab by waiving its power to require a vote on ending his emergency resolutions (the authority for most of what he is doing).
Treason isn't just doing things that turn out badly for the US (like tariffs that tank the stock market). It requires waging war on the US, or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. Despite trump's cozy relationship with Putin, it almost certainly doesn't (yet anyway) rise to the level of treason.
Shipwack
(2,611 posts)Demobrat
(10,135 posts)What did they think would happen?
Ocelot II
(124,338 posts)Give it up today and hell demand it every day.
NotHardly
(2,072 posts)I wonder what goods Trump has on them?
in2herbs
(3,700 posts)in the regime?
BigMin28
(1,655 posts)now.
BidenRocks
(1,352 posts)You dumbfucks never learned that you,
NEVER APPEASE A DICTATOR!
Jump now because you will hate yourself for life kissing the orange ass.
HE OWNS YOU!! Fucking no standards. They should be disbarred for teaming with a dictator.
RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE you rich bastards.
Sold out by lawyers.
Fitting if the trials were held in Nuremberg, Pa.
patphil
(7,716 posts)calimary
(85,966 posts)I WISH and HOPE these cavers will get whats ultimately coming to them, but they tend to be snakes. And snakes have a way of slithering under cover.
mackdaddy
(1,750 posts)Ben Meiselas on Meidas touch says this and it is absolutely true.
LetMyPeopleVote
(162,000 posts)Once you give into a blackmailer, then you should expect further demands
thought crime
(163 posts)Every lawyer becomes a Mob lawyer.
Martin68
(25,537 posts)continue making ever more stringent demands.
muriel_volestrangler
(103,483 posts)or just "handshake" agreements. It could make a lot of difference.
LetMyPeopleVote
(162,000 posts)trump never honors his agreements/contracts and so this is not surprising
https://bsky.app/profile/morgfair.bsky.social/post/3lmxdazf2cs27
Link to tweet
"The emerging gap between what the firms initially thought they agreed to and what Mr. Trump says they can be used for shows how the deals did little to insulate them from his whims," the Times reports. "Further demands on the firms from Mr. Trump could raise the potential for conflicts with paying clients and could further fuel internal dissension."
This uncertainty is compounded by the fact that it's not known if the deals the firms reached with Trump were formal written agreements or handshake deals.
Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, tells the Times that he thinks that the firms did not properly understand the type of administration they were dealing with when they decided to cave to Trump's threats.
"They thought they made one-shot deals which they would fulfill, he said. But the administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude.
Bengus81
(8,713 posts)Blasphemer
(3,431 posts)Rebl2
(16,183 posts)known better.