Paul Weiss Redux—Questions to Ponder

My Answers Will Come in later Posts. Meanwhile, Please Ponder The Questions. 

Washington Post, Law firm Paul Weiss agrees to deal with Trump, prompting criticism: The firm will provide $40 million in pro bono legal services to support Trump’s agenda after the president threatened to rescind some government contracts with the firm and its clients.

N.Y. Times, How a Major Democratic Law Firm Ended Up Bowing to Trump: Paul Weiss was targeted by an executive order from President Trump. Its chairman, who had worked against Mr. Trump during his first term, then went to the Oval Office and cut a deal.

A deeply researched article on the goings on at Paul Weiss, based on lots of things, including the thoughts of the firm’s managing partner, who tries to tell his side of the story.

N.Y. Times, Paul Weiss Deal With Trump Faces Backlash From Legal Profession: Paul Weiss, a law firm targeted by President Trump, reached a deal to settle a conflict. Many in the legal field are condemning the agreement. 

Wall Street Journal, Why Law Firm Paul Weiss Pleaded Its Case With Trump, and Not With a Court: Firm’s decision to cut deal with Trump shocked legal industry bracing for more executive orders.

Open Letter on the Rule of Law from Big Law Firm Associates

Washington Post, New Trump memo seen as threat to lawyers, attempt to scare off lawsuits

Questions

Here are some questions. (As I said, I’ll give my personal answers in later posts; others may have different answers than mine.)

Is the “agreement” between Trump and Paul Weiss legally enforceable—and does it even purport to be legally enforceable?

What did Paul Weiss actually “agree” to do?

What lies did Trump tell about the “agreement”?

In addition to the points in the agreement, what points are missing? In other words, what hound dogs are not barking in the night?

When the managing partner of Paul Weiss walked out of his meeting with Mango Mussolini, did the said managing partner think, “Man o man, did I just snooker Trump”?

What did Trump actually want from the “agreement,” and did he actually get the thing that he actually wanted?

Did Mr. Karp, Paul Weiss’s managing partner, overlook the forest for the trees?

Big law firms like Paul Weiss compete in three important dimensions. (1) They compete for the business of rich clients with legal issues. (2) They compete for associates (salaried junior lawyers); central to their business model is hiring able associates, paying them a lot of money—i.e., buying their time at wholesale—and then marking up their time to sell at retail, at exorbitant hourly rates. (3) They compete to steal partners with good “books of business” from other firms, and they strive to keep the partners they have from walking out the door. How will the Trump “agreement” impact Paul Weiss’s ability to engage effectively in these three modes of competition?

Paul Weiss probably expects to hire several dozen new associates from the graduating law class of 2025. How will the Trump “agreement” affect the thinking of those potential new hires? How will it affect their incentives to join—or not to join—Paul Weiss? How many of the 2025 law grads who have Paul Weiss offers are actually going to show up at the firm this summer? How many will decide to look for work elsewhere?

Would it be in the collective self-interest of the big firms to take the “Trump factor” out of their competition for corporate business, their competition for able associates, and their competition for partners?

In the next two weeks or so, is Paul Weiss likely to turn around and modify its position?

If a lot of the big firms decide, on reflection, that they would collectively be better off to stand together against Trump, what steps might they take to implement that decision?

In the next two weeks or so, is it likely that many of the big law firms will come to the epiphany that they need—in their own stone cold self-interest—to take collective action to support the rule of law?

Is Perkins Coie likely to win or lose in its lawsuit against Trump—and would one or more amicus briefs likely affect the outcome substantially?

President Lizard Brain seems to think he can head off the lawsuits against him—there are now well over a hundred, and he’s losing most of them—by punishing the lawyers who represent plaintiffs with legal positions adverse to him. But is there in fact there a constitutional right to sue? And does a litigant have a legal right to counsel of their choice? And is it lawful for the government to punish someone for exercising a constitutional right?

Is collective action against Trump by the major law firms a matter of life and death for democracy and the rule of law, or is it more like Kabuki theater?

If rule of law is ultimately to be preserved, what three factors will achieve the preservation?

And apart from that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?