The head of the elite New York law firm that cut a highly criticized deal with President Trump last week asserted on Sunday that he made the agreement because the firm was unlikely to survive a protracted legal fight with the Trump administration.
Brad Karp, the managing partner of the firm, Paul, Weiss said in an email to its lawyers that it was initially prepared to fight an executive order Mr. Trump had signed that essentially crippled the firm’s ability to represent clients.
But the firm’s clients were deeply concerned that even if Paul, Weiss won in court, it would still be labeled “persona non grata with the administration,” Mr. Karp said. He said that would potentially prompt clients to move their businesses to rival firms and cause Paul, Weiss to go under.
The email — the second Mr. Karp has sent to his firm in four days in which he has tried to explain the deal — demonstrated his efforts to stem the fallout, both internally and externally, from his decision to strike the agreement with Mr. Trump.
Some members of Mr. Karp’s firm — particularly litigators — had pushed to fight the order in court, arguing that a judge would quickly block Mr. Trump’s executive order. But members of the corporate practice — who account for a significant part of the firm’s revenue — insisted that Mr. Karp reach a deal to prevent clients from fleeing.
Mr. Karp, a prominent Democratic donor, had worked to harness the legal community against Mr. Trump during his first term and, in the past election cycle, to elect his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Critics have sharply criticized Mr. Karp and the firm — which had $2.63 billion in revenue last year and represents corporate clients like Exxon Mobil and Apollo Global Management — for too quickly bending to the president instead of fighting him in court, where a judge had already ruled that his executive order was likely illegal.
But Mr. Karp said in the email that even if a judge did block Mr. Trump’s order, the firm’s clients would be too scared of being perceived as being on the wrong side of the Trump administration to continue working with Paul, Weiss.
The claims from Mr. Karp underscored the power and effectiveness of Mr. Trump’s efforts to target law firms with executive orders over the past month, signaling that even the courts could not stop the president from potentially putting firms out of business if they did not capitulate to his administration’s demands.
“We initially prepared to challenge the executive order in court, and a team of Paul, Weiss attorneys prepared a lawsuit in the finest traditions of the firm,” Mr. Karp said in the email. “But it became clear that, even if we were successful in initially enjoining the executive order in litigation, it would not solve the fundamental problem, which was that clients perceived our firm as being persona non grata with the administration.”
Mr. Karp said that while the firm could stop the order from taking effect, “we couldn’t erase it.”
“Clients had told us that they were not going to be able to stay with us, even though they wanted to,” Mr. Karp said in the email. “It was very likely that our firm would not be able to survive a protracted dispute with the administration.”
The firm, formally called Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, has offices around the world. Its work involves mergers and acquisitions, private equity, white-collar and regulatory defense and litigation. Its clients also include Citigroup, Imagine Entertainment and Lucasfilm.
A week ago, Mr. Trump signed an executive order that essentially barred Paul, Weiss’s lawyers from entering federal buildings and dealing with the government. The order also said that companies doing business with Paul, Weiss could lose their government contracts.
Last Wednesday, Mr. Karp met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, and on Thursday, the president announced that Paul, Weiss had committed to represent clients regardless of their political views and would commit $40 million in pro bono legal work to causes Mr. Trump championed, including fighting antisemitism and helping veterans.
After the deal was announced on Thursday, Mr. Karp was widely criticized as capitulating to Mr. Trump and leaving other firms vulnerable.
Mr. Karp said in the email that the deal “was unambiguously in our clients’ best interests.” He said that thousands of the firm’s clients had reacted with relief to the “resolution of this situation and the fact that, as the president publicly has acknowledged, our firm now has an engaged and constructive relationship with this administration.”
“Even those who have expressed personal disappointment that we didn’t fight the administration have said they fully appreciate what was at stake for our law firm and respect our decision,” Mr. Karp said in his email.
