Trump Isn’t Appointing Judges Because He Can’t Find People to Appoint
The Wall Street Journal Does a Deep Dive Into All the Big Clients Saying Ixnay to the Cowardly Law Firms
Wall Street Journal, The Law Firms That Appeased Trump—and Angered Their Clients:
Support for the law firms that didn’t make deals has been growing inside the offices of corporate executives. At least 11 big companies are moving work away from law firms that settled with the administration or are giving—or intend to give—more business to firms that have been targeted but refused to strike deals, according to general counsels at those companies and other people familiar with those decisions.
Among them are technology giant Oracle, investment bank Morgan Stanley, an airline and a pharmaceutical company. Microsoft expressed reservations about working with a firm that struck a deal, and another such firm stopped representing McDonald’s in a case a few months before a scheduled trial.
In interviews, general counsels expressed concern about whether they could trust law firms that struck deals to fight for them in court and in negotiating big deals if they weren’t willing to stand up for themselves against Trump. The general counsel of a manufacturer of medical supplies said that if firms facing White House pressure “don’t have a hard line,” they don’t have any line at all. …
Not long after Latham struck a deal in April, the firm’s chair, Richard Trobman, met with Morgan Stanley’s chief legal officer, Eric Grossman, people familiar with the meeting said. Grossman heard him out about the firm’s reasoning for striking a deal and acknowledged that companies have to do what is best for themselves.
Soon after that meeting, Grossman and other Morgan Stanley lawyers communicated to law firms targeted by the White House that hadn’t signed deals that they were looking to give them new business, the people familiar with the meeting said. …
A top legal executive at another company said she called partners at Paul Weiss before it cut its deal to reassure the firm she would remain loyal, even though doing so risked millions in government contracts. She was shocked when the firm chair Brad Karp announced a deal, she said, and her company has plans to move work away from Paul Weiss.
The day after Paul Weiss struck its deal, female general counsels gathered for a conference in Washington. During a panel at the Women’s General Counsel Network event, a lawyer stood up and said her company had taken steps that morning to pull its business from Paul Weiss. The lawyer received thunderous applause.
About two weeks later, McDonald’s told a court that star Paul Weiss lawyer Loretta Lynch was withdrawing as its attorney in a high-profile lawsuit accusing the fast-food giant of discrimination against Black-owned media companies. Lynch, who had served as attorney general under former President Barack Obama, had been involved with the case for several years. It is unusual for companies to shake up representation close to trial. …
Emotions have run high inside some firms that struck deals, particularly among younger lawyers. At Skadden, Simpson, Latham and Kirkland, some associates have quit over the deals. One associate leaving Simpson wrote in his departure email, shared on LinkedIn, that he refused to “sleepwalk toward authoritarianism.” Partners, too, have left some of the firms that made deals.
At Sullivan & Cromwell, some lawyers have bristled at the role that co-chair Robert Giuffra played in facilitating a deal for Trump to drop an executive order against rival firm Paul Weiss. Giuffra, one of Trump’s personal lawyers, participated by phone in an Oval Office discussion with the Paul Weiss leader, who was there to work out a deal.
The New York Times Does a Deep Dive Into the Legal Issues Raised by Trump’s Purported Invocation of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act
N.Y. Times, A Fiery Brief Fueled by Conservatives Helped Put Trump’s Tariffs in Peril
This is a legally sophisticated yet understandable exposition of the legal issues. Despite the Times’ headline, the article shows how there is a large degree of bipartisan agreement among legal scholars that Trump’s tariffs are unconstitutional.
That bipartisan agreement should help the Supreme Court if and when it rules against Trump on the tariffs.
And, apart from the legal niceties, there is the fact that the tariffs are sending the economy to hell in a handbasket.
Facing MAGA 