Paul Weiss was sent in at the behest of President Trump. His chairman, who had worked against Mr. Trump during his first term, then went into the Oval Office and made a deal.
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Brad S. Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss, has led the effort against some of the policies of President Trump’s first term. His decision this week to strike a deal with Mr. Trump left many in the legal world, including some at his own firm, in shock.
Since President Trump's first term, Brad S. Karp, chairman of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, has positioned himself as a bulwark against what he sees as an illegitimate and unpredictable presidency.
Mr. Karp, who has a long history of fundraising for Democrats, has sought to unite major law firms in a “call to arms” to fight Mr. Trump in court on issues such as his administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents. He has publicly argued that lawyers have a duty to uphold the rule of law.
In 2023, he launched the Lawyers for Biden charity, and one of his top partners coached Vice President Kamala Harris for her debate with Mr. Trump.
It was no surprise, then, that Mr. Trump targeted Paul Weiss last week with an order that would potentially threaten the firm’s existence, even though the order was legally dubious and undermined fundamental principles of the justice system. In response, Mr. Karp began talks with another major firm about presenting a unified and bipartisan front and challenging the order in court.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Karp walked into the Oval Office around 8:30 a.m., leaving behind a hostile approach.
Now he wanted to make a deal.
A day later, Mr. Trump announced that Mr. Karp had agreed to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services on issues the president champions, including a Justice Department task force aimed at combating anti-Semitism, “and other mutually agreed-upon projects.”
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