Big Law Calls It Pro Bono. Gimme a Break.
Firms making deals with Trump call the free legal services they're promising him "pro bono." Who are they kidding?
STOP, JUST STOP, calling what Donald Trump has extracted from Big Law “pro bono.”
It is such an obvious sham. Yet the media use that term liberally — without quote marks, mind you — as if it were true.
To put it bluntly, nine of the nation’s most profitable law firms cut deals with the administration in order to get off the president’s personal shit list. They’ve pledged a staggering $940 million in free legal services for Trump-approved projects. These firms are: Paul Weiss, Skadden Arps, Willkie Farr, Milbank Tweed, Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher, A&O Shearman and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. No doubt, more firms will join this ignominious list and break the $1 billion ceiling in no time.
To call this arrangement “pro bono,” in either spirit or practice, is outrageous.
You don’t have to be a legal scholar to know what pro bono means: it’s providing free legal representation to those in need — the indigent, the disenfranchised, and the powerless. It does not mean serving the will of the most powerful ruler in the world who also happens to be hostile to those constituents.
While some of Trump-approved “pro bono” seems palatable enough — e.g., representing veterans, members of law enforcement, and the military and fighting anti-semitism (though why not racism?), he’s clearly not stopping there. At a recent executive order signing ceremony (does he ever sign anything without pageantry?), Trump announced to the dozens of coal miners in attendance: “We’re going to use some of those firms to work with you on your leasing and other things.”
Then, at a cabinet meeting, Trump said he would "try to use these very prestigious firms to help us out with the trade." He made a similar point the day before: “I think part of the way I'll spend some of the money that we're getting from the law firms in terms of their legal time will be — if we can do it, I think we can do it — using these great law firms to represent us with regard to the many, many countries that we'll be dealing with.”
Serving the coal industry and helping to clean up the mess of Trump’s tariffs now fall within the purview of pro bono? That’s certainly a long ways from helping the poor.
“The work that law firms would provide to ramp up coal production may be financially uncompensated but it is not ‘pro bono’ as that term is understood,” says a legal ethics expert dryly. As for pro bono tariff work, “the government has plenty of lawyers of its own and could well afford outside counsel.”
This isn’t about pro bono but protection money. And if you have any doubts, consider this: right after Kirkland Ellis, A&O Shearman, Simpson Thacher, and Latham Watkins each coughed up $125 million for Trump’s “pro bono” projects, the EEOC letters directed at those firms for possible DEI violations were withdrawn, with the announcement that the EEOC “will not pursue any claims related to those issues.” (The EEOC also withdrew its letters targeting Skadden and Milbank after they signed agreements with the administration. Cadwalader and Paul Weiss were not on EEOC’s original list of 20 firms.)
Trump could care less about the individuals and organizations that are the supposed beneficiaries of the pro bono he extracted from Big Law. But he is absolutely bedazzled by the nearly $1 billion in legal freebies from America’s top firms.
“We have a lot of law firms that have paid me a lot of money,” Trump bragged at the Cabinet meeting. "Hopefully I won't need that many legal fees. I may. Who knows? After it ends. After I leave maybe I'll need it, but if I do it won't be very pleasant."
It’s not clear what exactly Trump is talking about but it sure sounds like he’s not precluding dipping into that stash for himself in the future. And what else might qualify as “pro bono” in his expansive version of the term? Free legal advice to the family on its crypto ventures, Melania on her line of fashion merchandise, or the Trump Organization on developing the Gaza Riviera? Use your imagination. The possibilities are endless.
Look, law firms are free to do whatever they want. If they want to go along with Trump’s flexible interpretation of pro bono and throw him some very expensive legal services for free or at heavily discounted rates, that’s their business. (Though wouldn’t both the firms and Trump have to disclose the largesse?)
In the meantime, though, can we stop this “pro bono” nonsense? When powerful law firms give away their services to despots, that’s called a tribute. A cynical quid pro quo. Ransom money. Maybe bribery. But it certainly isn’t about serving justice or the public good. And the rest of us shouldn’t be giving it cover by going along with the pretense.
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My concern is that he will use these firms to cover for the lawyers leaving the Solicitor General's office.