Susman Godfrey’s decision to continue the US government has only taken two hours

When President Donald Trump published a decree this month targeting Susman Godfrey, one of the country’s pre-eminent law firms, the way was clear.

The ordinance came as a “total bolt of blue,” said a lawyer representing the cabinet later during a court hearing. No one in Susman Godfrey spoke to the White House of the reduction of an agreement, according to two people familiar with the problem.

The company was ready to fight.

The partners have unanimously agreed that the company would continue the US government to block the decree within two hours of the exam, the two people said.

In Trump’s political campaign against Big Law, nine companies have concluded agreements with the president, collectively promising $ 940 million in Pro Bono work. Four – Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, Wilmerhale and Susman Godfrey – have chosen to fight the administration in court.

More than a month after the Trump war against the great law, there is little evidence that these four companies have undergone serious consequences for having chosen to fight.

In each of the four proceedings, the federal judges quickly blocked the most substantial elements of each decree and indicated that they would decide later in favor of law firms.

The judge’s rapid order has experienced potential damage to Jenner & Block, according to a source familiar with the issue. Forty percent of the company’s revenues come from companies with government contracts, he said in his trial. While the customers were nervous, only one, which he had represented on a pro bono basis, cut the links, said the source.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that the biggest customers of Perkins Coie, including Amazon and Boeing, stick to the company, although it has lost work from Honeywell. William Malley, managing partner of the firm, told the American lawyer that he saw “the momentum” in business this year after that the cabinet’s average shareholder partner increased by almost 16% in 2024.

It is not clear if Wilmerhale or Susman Godfrey have lost customers. Both declared in court documents that Trump’s management decrees would harm their businesses, but they provided no example of customers who left or refused to do business.

Trump is hammered in court

Before the court, law firms that retaliate win.

They argued that decrees violated the Constitution and are examples of government manuals illegally targeting people and businesses during their speech and violating their customers’ right to advice.

The decrees say that law firms organize discriminatory Dei programs and that some of them represent national security threats because they employed lawyers who previously investigated Trump.

The lawyers of the Ministry of Justice argued that Trump’s powers are too wide for a judge to block the ordinances and that the judicial branch cannot even force the White House to explain.

During an audience of April 23, the American district judge Beyl Howell, who supervises the case of Perkins Coie, seemed incredulous in the arguments of the government. She submitted Richard Lawson, a lawyer from the Ministry of Justice, to a dam of often sarcastic questions about the scope of the decree, dismissing some of her posts of “hyper-technical legal arguments which may not have a merit”.

On the file, in the meantime, the administration is exceeded.

The two lawyers representing the government are Chad Mizelle, the chief of staff of the Prosecutor General of the United States, Pam Bondi, who worked in the first Trump administration and in a pair of elite law firms, and Lawson, who joined the Ministry of Justice after a prudent stay founded by Stephen Miller.

Two other officials from the Ministry of Justice before working on the Perkins Coie case abandoned, one to retire.

Representatives of the Ministry of Justice did not respond to a request for comments.

Companies that pursue the government work with legal heavyweights. Perkins Coie chose Williams & Connolly; Cooley LLP represents Jenner & Block; The conservative legal superstar Paul Clement represents Wilmerhale; And Susman Godfrey hired Munger Tolles, the elite law firm that organized a prior legal dissertation to affirm against Trump’s decrees.

Each trial has also attracted a wide range of friendly memories – favorable legal arguments – law professors, former judges, associations of bars, defenders of press freedom and others.

“You are a little exceeded here,” joked Judge Loren Alikhan in Lawson when he presented himself alone at an audience in the case of Susman Godfrey earlier this month.

Will transactions last?

Trump’s executive orders could have dismissed government contracts for each company and lawyer security authorizations. They could also have banned employees of government buildings, and judge Alikhan said that Trump’s order meant that lawyers could not enter the courthouses or post offices.

Brad Karp, the president of Paul Weiss, the first company that Trump has targeted, described the executive decree as an “existential crisis” which “could easily have destroyed our business” in an internal memo explaining why he had chosen to conclude an agreement with the president.

The companies that have concluded agreements with the White House – Paul Weiss, Skadden, Milbank, Willkie Farr, Cadwalader, Kirkland & Ellis, A & O Shearman, Simpson Thacher and Latham & Watkins – are in Trump’s good graces at the moment.

Their agreements may not be stable, however, and the terms of each agreement remain vague. It is also difficult to know if there are more detailed underlying agreements which state the responsibilities of each company. If a company questions the Trump administration in court or takes a client to which Trump opposes, he could issue a new decree.

“If he has a different interpretation from that of companies, he can put them online by making a decree,” said Nate Eimer, a lawyer representing more than 800 companies opposing executive orders, about Trump. The companies that have settled, he said, “get into a very, very difficult position”.

The White House has not answered questions as to if there are non -public agreements. None of the companies that concluded agreements responded to requests for comments. The representatives of Wilmerhale refused to comment. Perkins Coie did not respond to requests for comments.

Trump has openly reflected in the use of law firms for various purposes. During a cabinet’s television meeting a week after announcing scanning prices, he said they could negotiate trade agreements.

Mike Howell, who heads the supervisory project, a group was out of the Conservative Heritage Foundation, sent letters to numerous law firms – including some Trump has not targeted – asking them to devote a time of $ 10 million to help argue prosecution for freedom of information against agencies in “blue states”.

“I take care of my level with the general partners, some of whom responded very quickly,” said Howell. “Some have said, as pleasant as possible,” buzz off. “”

An atmosphere of fear

The decisions to fight or conclude an agreement have opened enormous rockets within the legal profession.

Divisions have emerged between litigants and transactors, between the actions of detention of actions and the idealistic partners, and between large companies with centralized decision -making processes and more democratic small partnerships.

“Paul Weiss – if they had not given up, we might have had a chance,” said Sean Burke, a legal head hunter with Whistler Partners. “It was like the straw that broke the back of the camel before it even begins.”

Paul Weiss’s pro Bono Practice Leader has left, although he said that his career change has been in preparation for months. A lawyer for government government contracts at Perkins Coie has moved to another company. Several partners in companies that have signed agreements have left and have made their employers castigate on LinkedIn.

Some lawyers left more quietly. “I am my family’s main supporter support,” said one who left a business that has entered into an agreement with Trump. “I have no generational wealth on which to fall back. I am not one of those who can set me up and leave.”

Big Law’s transactions have thrown cold in the upper levels of the legal profession, said a former federal prosecutor of the American prosecutor’s office in the South New York district, whose former colleagues fill the ranks of Big Law partnerships.

In private, some major legal partners have expressed their pride in their own companies to fight, said the former prosecutor. Others who understand why companies have concluded agreements are always unhappy.

“Everyone is afraid,” said that person. “Not of each other, but in general. There is just this culture of fear that I have never seen in the great law.”

Internal lawyers for companies are also nervous. They want to make sure their foreign council is ready to fight the government if necessary. A lawyer working in the company’s general council office told Business Insider that his company’s advisers in a law firm who had concluded an agreement with Trump said it was necessary to keep the influence with regulators.

“It’s just very cynical,” said the internal lawyer, who wants to redirect work to other companies. “I don’t feel comfortable, if you are going to engrave before the government, which you will represent me before the government.”

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert and Brent Griffiths contributed to the reports.