As Willkie Farr & Gallagher learned, cutting a deal with the White House can avert a financially punitive executive order. But doing so can draw internal rebukes and external criticism.
Willkie Farr & Gallagher last week became the latest law firm to strike a deal with the White House and escape President Trump’s wrath. But the firm, which pledged $100 million in legal services to causes that the Trump administration supports, traded one problem for another.
Willkie has faced a backlash to the deal in recent days, including within its ranks, as concerns mount over Mr. Trump’s broader law firm crackdown.
Doug Emhoff, former Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband and one of Willkie’s most prominent partners, publicly assailed the agreement with Mr. Trump. Congressional Democrats are now demanding information about the deal. And Willkie’s longest-serving lawyer, Joseph T. Baio, resigned rather than stay at a firm that gave in to the White House’s demands.
In an email to the firm’s executive committee, Mr. Baio wrote that he had left so he could “join the fight against governmental tyranny, unconstitutional decrees and social injustice, particularly at this critical time.”
The fallout at Willkie, which counted Mr. Trump among its clients decades ago, illustrates the no-win predicament facing law firms caught in Mr. Trump’s cross hairs. If they resist, the firms jeopardize their bottom line, exposing themselves to executive orders that, while legally dubious, imperil their businesses. But if they buckle, they are seen by critics as having compromised their integrity, drawing rebukes from across the broader legal community.
“We know this news is not welcomed by some of you, and you would have urged a different course of action,” Willkie’s executive committee said in an email to the firm last week explaining the deal. “Needless to say, this was an incredibly difficult decision for firm leadership.”