Legal activists urge Doug Emhoff to resign

Willkie Farr & Gallagher, the law firm where Doug Emhoff, the former vice-president Kamala Harris, is a partner, promises at least $ 100 million pro Bono legal work for causes aligned on “conservative ideals”, said President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

Willkie would be the third best law firm to formalize such an agreement with Trump, following similar promises by Paul Weiss and Skadden.

“Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP has proactively contacted President Trump and his administration, offering their decisive commitment to end the armament of the judicial system and the legal profession,” said the White House, according to Trump’s post on Truth Social.

Doug Emhoff and Willkie did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

Trump’s social media has also said that Thomas Mr. Cerabino, president of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, said that “the substance of this agreement is consistent” with the company’s opinion on access to legal representation by customers and that the company has “the history of working with customers in a wide range of political points”.

The announcement comes in the middle of a wave of Trump decrees targeting a great law on their affiliations – both with political adversaries and the causes that he has publicly criticized. These decrees included examining the security authorizations of law firms and the termination of their contracts with the government.

Most of these decrees, including these targeting Perkins Coie, Wilmerhale and Jenner & Block, were blocked by federal judges – some indefinitely until an official decision was rendered.

“The capitulation of Willkie Farr towards Trump is absolutely shameful,” said Molly Coleman, executive director of People’s Parity Project, an organization of law students and lawyers. “Emhoff and other partners must show that they are held on the side of the rule of law by resigning – there is absolutely no other option.”

“If someone should have the courage to refuse to practice the law under Trump’s thumb, it should be Doug Emhoff,” she added.

Paul Weiss also faced criticism to bow before Trump’s requests, and at least two lawyers have publicly resigned from Skadden before and after his agreement with Trump, with one qualifying the act of “a loose attempt to sacrifice the rule of law for self-preservation”.

Only a week after Trump was sworn in for his second term, Wilkie announced that she had hired Emhoff as a partner. In 2023, Wilkie invoked Tim Heaphy, the former lawyer investigation of the Restricted Committee of the Chamber which surveyed on January 6, 2021, attacks against the Capitol.

The firm represented Trump in a bankruptcy case in the 1990s and successfully defended his close ally, Thomas Barrack, in a federal case in 2022. The firm also represents X, the social media company now detained in Trump Ally and the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk.