Willkie Farr strikes deal with Trump, agrees to $100M in services, ends DEI

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that another major law firm with a significant California presence, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, has struck a deal with him to avoid an executive order ending its security clearance.

The deal, which would require the New York City-based firm that employs Douglas C. Emhoff, former Vice President Kamala Harris' husband in its Los Angeles office, to provide $100 million in legal services and not engage in any diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

"Willkie's pro bono Committee will ensure that new pro bono matters are consistent with these objectives, and that pro bono activities represent the full political spectrum, including Conservative ideals," Trump said on social media.

Thomas M. Cerabino, Willkie Farr's chairman, could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon. But in a statement in the New York Times, he confirmed the agreement, saying the "substance of that agreement is consistent with our Firm's views on access to Legal representation by clients, including pro bono clients, our commitment to complying with the Law as it relates to our employment practices, and our history of working with clients across a wide spectrum of political viewpoints."

"The Firm looks forward to having a constructive relationship with the Trump Administration, and remains committed to serving the needs of our clients, our employees, and the communities of which we are a part," Cerabino added, according to the Times.

Willkie Farr, which also has offices in San Francisco and Palo Alto, joins Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP as international law firms that have surrendered to Trump instead of fighting his executive orders as unconstitutional.

Trump's unprecedented attack on major law firms has divided them, with some fighting back while three firms have agreed to do a combined $240 million in pro bono work for his administration's priorities even as one firm leader blamed others for not rallying to their defense.

Most big law firms are staying quiet even as boutique firms - including Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP of San Francisco - have released statements denouncing what they say are unconstitutional executive orders.

The silence of the top firms has drawn condemnation, as has the quick surrender of three law firm industry titans - which will, effectively, act as the Trump administration's pro bono counsel and make other changes going forward.

"If lawyers and law firms won't stand up for the rule of law, who will?" Keker's name partners - John W. Keker, Robert A. Van Nest, and Elliot R. Peters - wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that was published Sunday.

In a statement, the firm denounced the executive orders. "Our profession owes every client zealous legal representation without fear of retribution, regardless of their political affiliation or ability to pay," the Keker partnership wrote.

Several other firms hit by Trump's executive orders to suspend their security clearances - Perkins Coie LLP, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP and Jenner & Block LLP -- are fighting back, and the latter has found representation from Palo Alto-based Cooley LLP.

The common thread linking the firms targeted by Trump is that they employ or have employed attorneys or others who worked on investigations of Trump, whether in Congress or in the various criminal cases against him, or represented Jack Smith, the former Justice Department special counsel who filed criminal charges against the president, which were later dropped.

Trump, in his March 25 executive order against Jenner & Block, cited the firm's past employment of Andrew Weissman, a former deputy to Robert S. Mueller III, who investigated Trump's ties to Russia during his first term and who has been a vocal critic of the president since.

"Jenner & Block LLP (Jenner) is yet another law firm that has abandoned the profession's highest ideals, condoned partisan 'lawfare,' and abused its pro bono practice to engage in activities that undermine justice and the interests of the United States," Trump wrote in an order that, among other things, suspended any active security clearances held by the firm's attorneys and staff.

Trump's executive orders against law firms have suspended security clearances and limited their access to certain federal government buildings.

The orders are already costing the firms business. Perkins Coie partner David J. Burman wrote in a declaration that a client, which the firm was defending in an enforcement action on which it had already performed work totaling $1 million in fees, dropped the firm after a federal agency said Perkins Coie could not attend a meeting regarding the case.

"The client, after expressing great reluctance and regret, said it was forced to hire other law firms to represent it before the federal government and in related litigation," he added. Perkins Coie LLP v. U.S. Department of Justice et al., 25-cv-00716 (D. D.C., filed March 11, 2025).

Cooley partner Michael A. Attanasio, based in San Diego, successfully argued for a temporary restraining order blocking Trump's executive order against Jenner & Block.

"It tells federal agencies not to meet, or even engage, with Jenner personnel. It directs cancelation of Jenner's government contracts. And it threatens the Firm's clients by requiring them to disclose their business with Jenner" regardless of whether the business is government-related, he wrote.

Senior U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush, granted the temporary restraining order last Friday and extended it in a Tuesday order "until final judgment in this matter." Jenner & Block LLP v. U.S. Department of Justice et al., 25-cv-00916 (D. D.C., filed March 28, 2025).

WilmerHale has hired Paul D. Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush who is a partner at Clement & Murphy PLLC, to represent the firm.

Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale have gotten temporary restraining orders from district judges in Washington, D.C.

Willkie Farr employs at least one investigator for the congressional committee that investigated Trump's alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a New York Times report.

Some general counsel have expressed support for firms that reach agreements with Trump, suggesting that many clients are not enthusiastic about their lawyers being on the Trump administration's bad side - even if the firms prevail in their legal challenges.

"It is not a good business decision to be the flag bearer of protesting Trump executive orders," Mark Harrington, general counsel at Pacific Sunwear, said in an interview with the Daily Journal last week.

Brad S. Karp, chairperson of Paul Weiss, has defended his decision in a March 23 letter to the firm, writing that Trump's executive order "could easily have destroyed our firm." And he wrote that he waited in vain for other firms to back him.

"Disappointingly, far from support, we learned that certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys," he wrote, in a letter obtained by former Above the Law founder David Lat on his Substack.

Some associates are quitting in protest at Skadden Arps after its executive chairman, Jeremy London, reached a deal with Trump in which the firm will do $100 million of work for administration projects.

Brenna Trout Frey, a senior associate in the firm's Washington, D.C. office, resigned. "The rule of law matters," she wrote in a LinkedIn post. "As an attorney, if my employer cannot stand up for the rule of law, then I cannot ethically continue to work for them."