At least 11 companies are moving their business away from firms that have settled with Donald Trump’s White House, The Wall Street Journal first reported. Some are planning — or are already giving — more work to those that have been targeted by Trump or his administration but did not budge, according to the companies’ general counsels and other people familiar.
These companies include financial services provider Morgan Stanley, technology corporation Oracle, and others in the airline and pharmaceutical industries, according to The Wall Street Journal. Technology conglomerate Microsoft had also expressed skepticism for working with a firm that came to a deal, and fast food giant McDonald’s stopped being represented by another firm a few months before a trial.
The Wall Street Journal reported that general counsels have doubted whether they could trust a firm to negotiate deals and win their own cases in court if they did not resist demands from Trump.
Oh no how unfortunate.
Who wants to hire a law firm that caves under pressure? It’s a fantastic litmus test of who’s worth hiring.
Do you want Mr. Caves Under Pressure on your case?
I heard a lawyer describe it as something like, “If a law firm can’t even defend itself, then why would anybody hire it to defend them?”
And Mr. I Cave Under Pressure is a creep.
Haha eat shit, should have thought of that before you got in bed with fascists.
Actually several of them made statements along the lines of “it’s cheaper to go along with it vs the business we’d lose from the media fallout”
So they actually went the wrong way on purpose not understanding public sentiment would change
Not that Microsoft is any better (they are a criminal oligarch organization), but they are not stupid!
I mean, the law firm executive orders read like they were written by a first-year who flunked Constitutional Law three times in a row. If a law firm can’t appreciate how easy they would be to defend against, and what great PR a win would be, then they can’t be helped - and worse, can’t help anyone.
Completely understandable reaction
One does not do business with Traitors
Good
It’s rather odd that they did not consider this consequence.
Do you imagine that the wimpy law firms will eventually need to rebrand? And, if so, I wonder if that thought has dawned on them yet.
Moreover, a similar consequence might await firms that caved-in and dropped support for DEI, I think.
Moreover, a similar consequence might await firms that caved-in and dropped support for DEI, I think.
I honestly think they might be at such a competitive disadvantage that they just fail as businesses. More diversity in the ways that fall under DEI also leads to diversity of perspectives, aka inventiveness, which leads to diversity of tactics, aka adaptability.
Markets are centralised enough that adaptability, inventiveness and other things like this don’t really matter any more. In a free market, sure. On Wall Street?
If market dynamics mattered at all, Tesla would be bankrupt, and so would be Oracle, Microsoft and many others.
All they see is “high profile client = $$$” and nothing else, completely ignoring that trump famously never pays.
Rebrand is tough. They’re named after the top equity partners lol - these folks gonna lie in whichever bed they choose to make
Treat this as untrustworthy anecdote since I can’t find the reference but I recall seeing an article recently where a few of the key partners have already split off and formed a new firm. I’d expect more like that based on my zero amount of expertise.
It’s rather odd that they did not consider this consequence.
People who are okay with doing bad things, are usually okay with it because they think most people are okay with, or even do, the same things.
It might be as simple as a conflict-of-interest check. If a firm has a contract with the government, it can usually not take cases that would pit it against it. That is actually quite normal, these firms obviously didn’t think that part through.
Maybe some law firms just shouldn’t exist.
Please forgive my potential whoosh, but I’m kinda out of the loop and also not American- what deals are these firms cutting with The Whitehouse? I can’t really gauge exactly what they are from the article. Can some kind person ELI5 for me?
Nine law firms have agreed to provide $940 million in pro bono work to efforts supported by the president and the firms. Basically free legal representation the Trump administration can assign how it likes.
