After Donald Trump’s disgraceful denial of the 2020 election results, I lost all enthusiasm for him.
Until he was indicted in New York on spurious grounds.
Paul Rosenzweig writes for the Atlantic:
The Pathetic, Cowardly Collapse of Big Law
…Trump and his supporters defend these actions on the childhood-playground basis that the Democrats started it.
That’s not a childish argument. It’s a strong legal argument in many instances. In real life, who starts a fight matters.
Grok says:
You’re right—determining who started a fight can be crucial, especially in legal contexts. In law, establishing the instigator often shapes the case, like in self-defense claims where the aggressor’s identity can decide guilt or innocence. It’s about accountability and intent, which are far from childish concerns; they’re foundational to justice.
The idea that it’s “childish” might stem from playground squabbles—“He started it!”—where the focus is more on blame than resolution. But that’s a narrow view. In adult conflicts, whether physical, verbal, or geopolitical, identifying the initiator provides context, clarifies motives, and can dictate the legitimacy of responses. For instance, historians still debate who sparked World War I because it affects how we judge the players involved.
It’s only “childish” if the pointing finger is just petty score-settling, not if it’s about understanding what really happened. Context is everything.
The right has never enjoyed this much success in transforming American institutions (which until now have predominantly been in the hands of the left).
Aaron Renn writes Feb. 13: “Conservatives can’t use the long march strategy because the left isn’t dumb enough to let them penetrate institutions. Instead, conservatives need to do the equivalent of a private equity buyout and restructure institutions from the top down.”
Grok says: “Reports indicate that rival firms, such as Sullivan & Cromwell and Kirkland & Ellis, have begun poaching talent from targeted firms, exploiting the instability Trump’s actions have created.”
The New York Times is flooding the zone on this story, assigning five reporters:
Skadden, a Top Law Firm, Is in Talks to Avert an Executive Order
The discussions come as President Trump has taken aim at WilmerHale, another big law firm. Other major firms are said to be trying to cut deals with the White House.
By Michael S. Schmidt, Ben Protess, Matthew Goldstein,Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Maureen Farrell
The elite law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom has had discussions with President Trump’s advisers about a deal to avert the type of executive order that the White House has been imposing on many of its competitors, according to five people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
The talks represent an extraordinary turn in Mr. Trump’s campaign against law firms and the legal system more broadly, marking what appears to be the first time that a major firm has tried to cut a deal with the president before he could issue an executive order. Recent orders targeting other law firms have restricted the work they can do with the federal government.
The Skadden discussions are also the latest example of how large law firms, afraid of a protracted battle with Mr. Trump, are eager to strike deals.
The White House has signaled that more firms are in the president’s sights to receive executive orders, particularly those that employ lawyers who have worked on investigations into Mr. Trump or on causes that his supporters object to…
While WilmerHale vowed to fight the order, Skadden was not the only firm in discussions with Mr. Trump’s team, according to two people briefed on the matter, and multiple deals could be announced in the coming days.
It is unclear how the talks got started or whether Skadden will reach an agreement with Mr. Trump. But on Wednesday, the president hinted that such deals might emerge and boasted about his track record of bringing big law firms to heel.
“They’re all bending and saying, ‘Sir, thank you very much,’” Mr. Trump said, adding that law firms are saying, “‘Where do I sign? Where do I sign?’”
…In a post on his social media platform, X, on Sunday, Elon Musk singled out Skadden’s work assisting in a lawsuit against Dinesh D’Souza, the right-wing media critic and political commentator…
The leaders of Paul Weiss said that Mr. Trump’s order would have decimated their business — and that rivals were looking to poach some of their top lawyers. But the firm’s agreement appears to have emboldened the president and encouraged other firms to consider making their own deals.
The flurry of actions taken by Mr. Trump against law firms has, for the most part, been met with silence from industry leaders. Lawyers have been reluctant to speak out for fear of making their firm a target.
Grok says:
Skadden, a leading law firm, has engaged in talks with Trump’s advisers to avoid an executive order like those recently imposed on competitors such as WilmerHale, Jenner & Block, and Perkins Coie. These orders, part of Trump’s escalating war on elite law firms, restrict their federal government work, revoke security clearances, and target firms linked to past investigations (e.g., Mueller’s Russia probe) or causes Trump opposes. Skadden’s move marks a shift, as it’s the first major firm to proactively negotiate before an order is issued, following Paul Weiss’s earlier deal with Trump. The article cites anonymous sources, highlights Elon Musk’s criticism of Skadden on X, and notes the legal community’s mixed response—silence from most firms, resistance from Perkins Coie, and warnings from legal scholars about threats to the rule of law.
The article frames Trump’s actions as a personal crusade, targeting firms like WilmerHale (tied to Mueller) and Jenner & Block (linked to Andrew Weissmann) for their roles in past investigations. The executive order against WilmerHale on March 27, 2025, exemplifies this, accusing it of “weaponizing” the legal system and abusing pro bono work. Trump’s rhetoric—“They’re all bending and saying, ‘Sir, thank you very much’”—suggests he sees these moves as victories in a power struggle.
Skadden’s talks indicate Trump’s strategy is working, pressuring firms into preemptive compliance.
Law Firms’ Strategic Retreat:
Skadden’s negotiations, alongside Paul Weiss’s $40 million pro bono deal, highlight a trend of capitulation over confrontation. The article notes multiple firms are in similar discussions, driven by fear of business losses—e.g., Paul Weiss cited the risk of rival poaching and operational collapse. This contrasts with Perkins Coie’s legal challenge, positioning Skadden as prioritizing survival over principle.
The trigger for Skadden’s talks may tie to Musk’s March 23 X post criticizing its work against Dinesh D’Souza, though its past representation of Musk in the Twitter deal adds complexity.
Implications
Industry Shifts: Trump’s campaign is reshaping Big Law’s landscape. Firms face a choice: negotiate (Skadden, Paul Weiss), fight (Perkins Coie), or stay silent (most others). The article hints at a ripple effect—rival firms poaching talent, as with Paul Weiss, could accelerate if more orders hit, weakening targeted firms’ market positions.
Political Leverage: Musk’s role underscores how Trump allies amplify his influence. Skadden’s dual history with Musk (Twitter) and Mueller’s Ukraine probe makes it a prime target, showing how personal and political grievances intertwine.
Legal Precedent: Perkins Coie’s early court win and Judge Howell’s stance suggest Trump’s orders may face constitutional challenges, potentially limiting their scope. However, Skadden’s talks could reduce the number of test cases if more firms settle.
The article paints Skadden’s discussions as a pivotal moment in Trump’s assault on Big Law, blending strategic retreat with broader threats to legal norms. It’s a compelling snapshot of a profession under siege, caught between political retribution and self-preservation. Yet, its focus on deal-making might overstate Trump’s dominance, given emerging judicial resistance. For Skadden, the stakes are high—negotiating with Trump could save its business but cost its reputation, a dilemma the article captures without fully resolving.
The New York Times posted Mar. 26, 2025:
Big Law Splinters Under a Trump Onslaught
The president’s repeated clashes with the nation’s most prestigious law firms has had a destabilizing business effect.
One of the biggest questions has been whether Big Law would band together amid Trump’s barrage. So far, the opposite has happened: Corporate law firms are using Trump’s assault as a competitive opportunity, The Times reports.
As Paul, Weiss was dealing with its own executive order this month, rival firms dove in to try to poach clients and partners.
The firm’s competitors moved in swiftly. Several of Paul, Weiss’s top rivals, including Sullivan & Cromwell and Kirkland & Ellis, tried to poach Paul, Weiss rainmakers within days of Trump issuing an executive order that could have seriously hobbled its business, according to The Times. They took a soft approach with the firm’s leaders, saying that they sympathized with their plight, but that if they wanted out of the turmoil, they could name their price.
The outreach made a bad situation worse. Panic was already roiling through Paul, Weiss over the potentially catastrophic effect of the executive order.
The order restricted the firm’s lawyers from dealing with the government, including entering federal buildings, and said companies doing business with Paul, Weiss could lose their government contracts. Even if the firm successfully fought the order in court, it was feared it would be labeled an enemy of Trump.
The threat of losing the firm’s top lawyers compounded those worries. Some partners were particularly concerned that Scott Barshay, the head of the corporate practice, might leave and prompt others to follow him.
GianCarlo Canaparo, a Senior Legal Fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, writes for The Daily Economy:
Big Law Firms Face Legal Reckoning Over Race Preferences
Title VII makes it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of race. But many firms’ efforts to ‘increase diversity’ did exactly that.
It is no secret that many of the nation’s largest and most prestigious law firms went woke. For years, they have publicly championed left-wing social causes, fired conservatives for representing conservative clients, and used racial preferences for applicants and employees.
That last one has gotten them into trouble with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency tasked with policing employment discrimination.
The Acting Chair of the Commission, Andrea Lucas, has sent letters to twenty firms requesting information about their race-based employment practices. The letters appear to be a prelude to investigations and, depending on how the firms respond, enforcement actions.
The letters to the firms are titled “Review of [Firm’s] Compliance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” and reveal shocking practices that top lawyers, like those who staff these firms, should have known were illegal.
For example, about half of the letters suggest that the firms held attorney applicants to different standards depending on their race. It has long been rumored that some of the top law firms required lower GPAs for black and Hispanic applicants than they did for Asian and white students, and would recruit the former from lower-ranked schools than they would the latter. The letters suggest that this rumor was more than speculation.
To prove whether the firms are using different standards for different groups, the letters ask the firms to produce information about their applicants’ race, law school, and GPA. The law firms could refuse to disclose the information, which might raise the inference that they are guilty. Like the good lawyers they are, they will defend their nondisclosure by saying that refusal to provide exculpatory information is not an admission of guilt. Although technically correct, that rule is little help in race discrimination cases, which turn on intent, and the practices documented in these letters are strong evidence that the firms intend to discriminate.
For example, the letters describe the firms’ “diversity scholarships” and “diversity internships.” These programs offer priority access to job interviews, pipelines to employment, special stipends or scholarships, or additional pay all given to people because they check a certain identity box — a plain violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which forbids employment discrimination.
Some firms, perhaps thinking that they were being clever, outsourced this discrimination to third parties. Kirkland & Ellis, for example, partners with an organization called “Afro Law,” which gives “Afro” students a “pipeline” to employment with Kirkland that is denied to applicants of other races. Kirkland and many other firms on the list also partner with Sponsors for Education Opportunity (SEO), which despite the less-obvious name, does much the same thing.
As the letters explain, SEO is another fellowship program that partners with law firms to put its fellows on fast-tracks to employment at these firms. It also entitles fellows to extra pay or scholarships, mentoring, and other things that Title VII calls “terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.” Although SEO says its fellowship is open to anyone, the letters document how the fellowship is, in fact, limited to “students of color.” Unhelpfully for both SEO and the firms that partner with it, some law schools, like Columbia University, revealed the truth and told students that the fellowship is restricted to, or at best focused on, certain racial groups at the exclusion of others.
Perhaps the lawyers thought that discrimination was permissible if it was outsourced to third parties, but this is delegated discrimination, and it doesn’t fly under Title VII.
The letters also target race- and sex-based staffing quotas. These are demands, usually made by clients, that specific matters are staffed with specific numbers or percentages of lawyers from various race, sex, or gender groups. As explained elsewhere, these programs typically hurt the lawyers they are supposed to help by denying them control over their own careers. Lawyers from the groups on the quota lists are forced to work for clients that maintain such lists whether they want to or not, whereas lawyers who aren’t on the lists remain free to work on whatever they choose.
Then there are “Affinity Groups,” another practice that the firms are not shy about. As the letters explain, these are employee groups organized around race, ethnicity, sex, or other characteristics that Title VII prohibits organizing around. The letters demand to know whether participation in the groups is a factor in getting promoted. But even if it isn’t, the groups are still a special “privilege of employment,” and therefore prohibited.
The discriminatory practices go on. The letters demand that firms explain their annual reports and plans for increasing “demographic representation.” They demand that the firms reveal whether they hired or promoted people because they checked an identity box, whether partners’ compensation was tied to “representation goals,” and whether the firms paid bigger recruitment bonuses to employees who recruited candidates who checked certain boxes.
Reading through the letters (together, they span 210 pages), one wonders how on earth the most prestigious lawyers with the shiniest credentials our elite universities can offer could have done all this. Title VII is not a new or complicated statute, after all. Its core provision says simply that it is unlawful “to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” and to “limit, segregate, or classify” individuals in a way which tends to adversely affect their employment. No one needs a law degree from an Ivy League law school to understand it. But perhaps prestigious degrees are precisely the reason that these lawyers misunderstand it.
A degree from those vaunted halls was once a reliable indicator of intellect and good legal judgment. Now, however, it’s a reliable indicator of zealous adherence to a trendy ideology that says “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” By the dim light of that backward dogma, the law is either a tool of oppression or a plaything to be melded by the cognoscenti, but either way, if it commands a benighted outcome, it can be ignored. And so it has been.
Rebels against this ideology who have spent time in these firms will not be surprised by the letters or the practices they detail. In truth, the only surprising thing about the letters is that more firms didn’t get one. When the list went public, heterodox thinkers at other firms reached out to say things like “I’m amazed my firm isn’t on it.”
To which a twofold response is due: First, save some screenshots and please share them. And second, just wait. We’re two months in; 46 remain.