{"id":3174,"date":"2025-03-23T21:05:48","date_gmt":"2025-03-23T21:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=3174"},"modified":"2025-03-23T21:05:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T21:05:48","slug":"head-of-paul-weiss-says-firm-would-not-have-survived-without-deal-with-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=3174","title":{"rendered":"Head of Paul, Weiss Says Firm Would Not Have Survived Without Deal With Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The head of the elite New York law firm that cut a highly criticized deal with President Trump last week asserted on Sunday that he made the agreement because the firm was unlikely to survive a protracted legal fight with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Brad Karp, the managing partner of the firm, Paul, Weiss said in an email to its lawyers that it was initially prepared to fight an executive order Mr. Trump had signed that essentially crippled the firm\u2019s ability to represent clients.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But the firm\u2019s clients were deeply concerned that even if Paul, Weiss won in court, it would still be labeled \u201cpersona non grata with the administration,\u201d Mr. Karp said. He said that would potentially prompt clients to move their businesses to rival firms and cause Paul, Weiss to go under.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"><a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/21\/nyregion\/what-is-paul-weiss.html\" title=\"\">The firm<\/a>, formally called Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &amp; Garrison LLP, has offices around the world. Its work involves mergers and acquisitions, private equity, white-collar and regulatory defense and litigation. Its clients have included corporations like ExxonMobil, Citigroup, Imagine Entertainment and Lucasfilm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some members of Mr. Karp\u2019s firm \u2014 particularly litigators \u2014 had pushed to fight the order in court, arguing that a judge would quickly block Mr. Trump\u2019s executive order. But members of the corporate practice \u2014 who account for a significant part of the firm\u2019s revenue \u2014 insisted that Mr. Karp reach a deal to prevent clients from fleeing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Karp said in the email that even if a judge did block Mr. Trump\u2019s executive order, the firm\u2019s clients would be too scared of being perceived as being on the wrong side of the Trump administration to continue working with Paul, Weiss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The claims from Mr. Karp underscored the power and effectiveness of Mr. Trump\u2019s efforts to target law firms with executive orders over the past month, signaling that even the courts could not stop the president from potentially putting firms out of business if they did not capitulate to his administration\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe 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,\u201d Mr. Karp said in the email. \u201cBut it became clear that, even if we were successful in initially enjoining the executive order in litigation, it would not solve the fundamental problem, which was that clients perceived our firm as being persona non grata with the administration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Karp said that while the firm could stop the order from taking effect, \u201cwe couldn\u2019t erase it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cClients had told us that they were not going to be able to stay with us, even though they wanted to,\u201d Mr. Karp said in the email. \u201cIt was very likely that our firm would not be able to survive a protracted dispute with the administration.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A week ago, Mr. Trump signed an executive order that essentially barred Paul, Weiss\u2019s lawyers from entering federal buildings and dealing with the government. The order also said that companies doing business with Paul, Weiss could lose their government contracts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Last Wednesday, Mr. Karp met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, and on Thursday, the president announced that Paul, Weiss had committed to represent clients regardless of their political views and would commit $40 million in pro bono legal work to causes Mr. Trump championed, including fighting antisemitism and helping veterans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After the deal was announced on Thursday, Mr. Karp \u2014 a prominent Democratic donor who had worked to harness the legal community against Mr. Trump during his first term and to elect his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris \u2014 was widely criticized as capitulating to Mr. Trump and leaving other firms vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Karp said in the email that the deal \u201cwas unambiguously in our clients\u2019 best interests.\u201d He said that thousands of the firm\u2019s clients had reacted with relief to the \u201cresolution of this situation and the fact that, as the president publicly has acknowledged, our firm now has an engaged and constructive relationship with this administration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cEven those who have expressed personal disappointment that we didn\u2019t fight the administration have said they fully appreciate what was at stake for our law firm and respect our decision,\u201d Mr. Karp said in his email.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/23\/us\/politics\/paul-weiss-firm-trump.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The head of the elite New York law firm that cut a highly criticized deal with President Trump last week asserted on Sunday that he made the agreement because the firm was unlikely to survive a protracted legal fight with the Trump administration. Brad Karp, the managing partner of the firm, Paul, Weiss said in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-political-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}