Paul Weiss Alums Protest ‘Craven Surrender’ to Trump Administration

There’s been growing fallout over the law firm’s deal with the Trump administration to protect itself from a threatening executive order.

Brad Karp

Paul Weiss Chair Brad Karp defended the deal, saying Trump’s executive order posed and “existential” threat to the firm. Matt Rourke/AP

The powerful white shoe law firm Paul Weiss is facing a firestorm of criticism after striking a deal with the Trump administration, which revoked a crushing executive order targeting the firm in exchange for pro bono legal services and other internal changes.

More than 140 former employees signed onto a March 24 letter to the firm’s chair, Brad Karp, lambasting its “craven surrender” to the administration’s “bullying tactics.”

“Instead of a ringing defense of the values of democracy, we witnessed a craven surrender to, and thus complicity in, what is perhaps the gravest threat to the independence of the legal profession since at least the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy,” the letter states.