Fear of Trump: What Big Law really thinks about the Rule of Law
Big US law firms have agreed almost $1bn+ in pro bono deals with the White House. So, what do senior lawyers think about threats to the rule of law?
Over the past 80 years, free trade and the rule of law have become intertwined – globally, the US has consistently championed both. A cornerstone of the US Constitution, the rule of law sets the standard against which Americans judge their government. But like free trade, the concept has been fundamentally subverted by President Trump, whose actions over tariffs and his attitude to the rule of law symbolise the deep divisions both within the US, and between the US and the rest of the world. Divisions have also become acutely apparent in the US legal profession thanks to a series of executive orders issued in March 2025 by the president against a number of big US law firms.
Fearful that they would lose major clients, some firms have chosen what they perceived to be the only pragmatic option: cut a deal. Under White House agreements with nine big law firms, $940m+ in collective bono legal services has been committed by them to causes advocated by Trump. Critically, this has enabled him to create a panel of high-powered firms over which he now has significant leverage. Unsurprisingly, the deals done have polarised opinion with much opprobrium falling on some of these firms for what one group of law firm alumni calls: “A craven surrender to, and thus complicity in, what is perhaps the gravest threat to the independence of the legal profession since at least the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy.”
What follows are verbatim comments given to me by very prominent figures in leading US law firms, several of which have since reached settlements with the Trump administration.
In face-to face interviews, they answered my questions about the rule of law in Trump’s America. These extracts from previously unpublished interviews provide invaluable insight into what some major players in Big Law firms really think about the rule of law and potential threats under a Trump administration.
As one interviewee put it: “It’s very easy to ensconce yourself in your corporate law bubble and be impervious to what is going on in the world around you, and if we do that, we have, in my view, violated our fundamental fiduciary duty to society. I believe that we have the ability, the tools and the obligation to stand up for what is fundamental and right in our democracy. I talk to our partners, to our associates, literally every week about our obligations to protect the rule of law and protect individual liberties – even if it’s unpopular and even if you might antagonise someone temporarily in power and they are arrogantly trampling over rules, and rights and protections, and safeguards, that were put in place to protect the democracy. And if they want to screw around with them, they do so at their own peril, they are going to have to go through us because we will protect as best as we can our democracy.”
