Trump’s crackdown on law firms is chilling the future of pro bono legal work
By Katelyn Polantz, CNN
Washington (CNN) — When 85,000 people fled Afghanistan in 2021, lawyers from major law firms stepped up to file their political asylum petitions. When the names of more than 700 detainees at Guantanamo Bay were released in 2004, lawyers from large law firms became counsel for many of the men. And when transgender people across the US need help with changing their names, lawyers from large law firms are often the ones helping them to file the paperwork.
Yet now, amid an aggressive crackdown by the Trump administration against large law firms aligned against him, a worry has set in that types of pro bono legal work, where hundreds of lawyers from large firms mobilize in humanitarian crises, may no longer be politically viable.
That’s because President Donald Trump’s executive orders against a handful of major law firms barring them from federal buildings and punishing their clients with government contracts, among other restrictions, have prompted other major firms, including longtime pro bono powerhouses, to cut deals with the White House.
“The sea has parted,” Juan Proaño, the CEO of LULAC, one of the most prominent civil rights litigants for Hispanics in the US. “There are some firms that are much more reserved about their engagement.”
Several law firm partners who have done significant pro bono work in the past told CNN that lawyers at large firms now may think twice before pitching cases that would step too far into politics.
“I know from talking to organizations, they are having a hell of a time finding firms to partner with,” one senior partner at a large law firm told CNN. “Firms are really gun shy to take on cases that may upset the administration.”
The Trump-era political climate, thus, may hurt the areas of pro bono legal services that used to be typical — defending people’s rights, such as in reproduction and abortion, LGBTQ and voting access cases, and in legal work around immigration, according to more than a dozen law firm partners, pro bono program directors and legal aid group leaders, which are often the connector between impoverished people in need of lawyers and the big firms that have lawyers to spare to help.
“We cannot do this work without the support of the legal community and without the significant benefit of legal services that they provide,” Proaño told CNN. “We rely on the ability to have access to these lawyers and these law firms.”
LULAC found itself at the center of Trump’s storm briefly in March. LULAC had been a long-time pro bono client of the major law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, which Trump sought to punish because some of its attorneys had investigated him when they were prosecutors.
Paul Weiss’ chairman met with Trump to find a way out from under the executive order – a so-called “existential crisis” for this corporate defense firm – and hours before a deal with the White House was announced, a Paul Weiss lawyer called LULAC to tell the group the firm could no longer represent it on one matter, according to a person familiar with the developments.
The Paul Weiss deal set the tone for several other settlements Trump made in the following weeks with eight other major law firms. Each contains a pledge to contribute between $40 million and $125 million, depending on the firm, toward pro bono work on issues including fighting antisemitism and helping veterans, for instance. Yet those are areas where pro bono culture is already well-established in the legal industry.
The story of LULAC being dropped as a legal client was noted in national magazines, and shortly after that, Paul Weiss reversed course again, saying it would continue to do pro bono work for the organization, the person said. In a statement, a spokesperson for Paul Weiss said it was “proud to represent LULAC in this matter, look forward to future representations, and have enormous respect for their work.”
Still, the point had been made.
Big Law’s legacy is changing
The pride Big Law traditionally has had for touting firm pro bono work already appears to be evaporating, little by little. Several law firms’ pro bono web pages and press releases from past efforts are no longer accessible online.
Paul Weiss, for instance, still touts representing victims of the Charlottesville White supremacist rally in 2017 on its site, as well as a case it brought for the historically Black church in DC that had its property damaged by the Proud Boys in 2021.
But one press release, announcing the $1 million win in a case against the Proud Boys, is no longer available. The firm spokesperson declined to comment about changes to the site.
The impact may be worst at the large firms that have settled with Trump. Some, like Skadden Arps, which pledged $100 million in its settlement with Trump, have storied pro bono programs, some of the largest in the industry.
Skadden sits among the top dozen law firms in the US for its lawyers’ combined pro bono contributions, according to a 2024 survey from American Lawyer Magazine. Nearly two-thirds of Skadden’s 1,300 lawyers devoted more than 20 hours to pro bono work in 2023, according to the survey. The firm didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A glance at court records also reveals the impact: In the hours and days after the Trump administration banned Muslims coming from some countries to the US in 2017, crowds of attorneys from major law firms rushed to airports to help. Top lawyers from many storied law firms continued to be involved both behind the scenes and in the years of court fights.
The ranks of large law firms behind the public interest groups filing the majority of challenges against the administration are thinner this year. A few major law firms that have chosen to fight against Trump’s legal industry executive orders — Perkins Coie, Munger Tolles & Olson, Jenner & Block and others — are appearing on cases opposing government policies against immigration and transgender rights, for instance. But several firms that may have been involved in the past are not.
James Sandman, a longtime advocate for pro bono work in DC and a past head of both the DC Bar and a major Washington-founded law firm, Arnold & Porter, had pointed words for Paul Weiss and others, whom he called the “settling or capitulating firms.”
“They now have a new partner in vetting every pro bono decision they make: Donald Trump,” Sandman said. “They effectively disqualified themselves in playing any role in opposing the Trump administration’s attacks on the rule of law.”
Trump has subsequently said he expects private law firms to take on pro bono clients around his tariffs plan, or in the coal industry, which is typically the realm of paying legal clients. The White House also issued an executive order late last week directing the attorney general to find a way to “use … private-sector pro bono assistance” for “law enforcement officers who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law.” Law firms are still waiting to see what that may mean.
Never a scarier time
Gary Thompson, the former head of international firm Reed Smith’s Washington office and a long-time pro bono advocate, recalled that in prior presidencies and even the first Trump administration, lawyers opposing the Justice Department were always treated with respect.
Thompson was among the attorneys from major law firms who stepped up in 2004 to represent Guantanamo Bay detainees to petition for their release.
“I don’t know if my client is guilty or innocent, but what I do know is there should be due process to find out,” Thompson said, reflecting on the driving force of much of the legal industry’s pro bono efforts. “Everybody I spoke to, I explained it was about the rule of law. Military leadership on the base showed us respect.”
But now, Thompson said, he would need to think twice if he were still working at a large firm that could be a target of Trump’s legal revenge tour. He now runs his own three-person law firm.
“Each lawyer will have to decide, what are the potential consequences to my career? If I don’t keep a low enough profile, will I be fired? Would I even be prosecuted for taking the case?” he added. “I’ve never seen a scarier time in my career.”
Thompson doesn’t take on major pro bono matters anymore, partly because his firm is too small to weather long-term unpaid client engagements — the types of work that only the largest firms can accommodate.
In other realms, Big Law’s pro bono programs will be untouched.
Many firms regularly field lawyers toward local court cases, representing the homeless, tenants in disputes with their landlords and people who are victims of domestic violence, for instance. And some of the immigration pushes of firms from previous years, such as in representing asylum seekers from Afghanistan, are largely finished.
There are silver linings, too, in Trump’s political climate. Amy Nelson, the legal services director at Whitman-Walker Health, which often works with firms helping LGBTQ people and others in need in the Washington, DC, area, told CNN she hasn’t seen a blip in support from the legal industry.
“I am delightfully surprised that so far, so good,” she said.
But the fear still hangs. A pro bono attorney at one large firm questioned what might happen if, say, a conservative group sought out Big Law backing to take on one of the initiatives that had long been anathema to Big Law: opposing same-sex marriage. What would the White House do if it wanted to pressure a firm into working on a case that sought to overturn Supreme Court precedent, for instance, the attorney mused.
Sandman, the longtime pro bono legal advocate in Washington, said that would push firms over the edge.
“I don’t think they could force that on a big law firm,” he said. “That would be dynamite. That would push firms too far. If that came out, if a firm took on a representation like that at the behest of the Trump administration, stand back.”
CNN’s Maria Moctezuma and Sylvie Kirsch contributed to this report.
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