"For lawyers, the Trump II era has been defined by the existential crisis facing the profession. Donald Trump has gone to war with the rule of law and Biglaw through a series of unconstitutional Executive Orders (or the mere threat of them) designed to break major law firms and have them bend a knee to Trump or extract a tremendous financial penalty."
""If you are in the business in Washington, DC, of working for clients that have issues before the government, it's better to be someone who can work with the government than someone who just says screw you," Ballard said. "I think it's pretty smart for those guys to have done what they've done-the guys we represented and others.""
"I termed the Biglaw deals pro bono payola because that's what they are - paying (through pro bono services) to play. And while that may may grease the wheels for a subset of a Biglaw firm's clients (and accentuate the difference between corporate and litigation clients), there are plenty of clients that see this as a problem."
Donald Trump has used threats and unconstitutional Executive Orders to pressure major law firms, prompting nine firms to offer pro bono services to conservative clients to avoid retribution. Lobbying firm Ballard Partners defended such accommodations as pragmatic for firms that need to work with government to serve clients. The practice, termed "pro bono payola," trades free legal work for political protection and client advantages while raising ethical, reputational, and client-conflict concerns. The dynamic exacerbates tensions between corporate and litigation clients and accentuates a broader existential crisis in the legal profession over independence and rule-of-law commitments.
Read at Above the Law
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