Five more prominent law firms facing potential punitive action by President Trump reached deals on Friday with the White House to provide a total of $600 million in free legal services to causes supported by the president.
Four of the firms — Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, A&O Shearman and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett — each agreed to provide $125 million in pro bono or free legal work, according to Mr. Trump. A fifth firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, agreed to provide at least $100 million in pro bono work.
With the latest round of deals, some of the biggest firms in the legal profession have agreed over the past month to provide a combined $940 million in free legal services to causes favored by the Trump administration, including ones with “conservative ideals.”
Mr. Trump announced the agreements between his administration and the law firms on Friday on Truth Social, the platform owned by his social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group.
Top lawyers from each firm provided a statement to the White House, which was included in the social media posts. Earlier this week, The New York Times reported on negotiations with four of the firms.
The deals were announced during a week in which Mr. Trump talked openly in the Oval Office about using the firms he has struck deals with to help negotiate trade agreements with other countries and even work on coal leasing deals.
Mr. Trump did not specifically mention potential work on trade deals or coal leasing agreements in his social media posts. Rather, the posts said the firms would devote free legal work to things like fighting antisemitism, helping Gold Star families, assisting law enforcement and “ensuring fairness in our justice system.”
The terms are similar to ones Mr. Trump previously announced with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; and Milbank.
Law firms are settling with the Trump administration to head off executive orders that would make it difficult for them to represent clients with federal contracts or seek government regulatory approvals.But a few firms are fighting Mr. Trump’s executive orders in federal court, claiming the orders are unconstitutional and a form of retaliation for taking positions he doesn’t like. Judges have temporarily stayed the orders against Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and Jenner & Block from going into effect.
A fourth firm, Susman Godfrey, was hit with an executive order this week and became the latest firm to take on the Trump administration. Late Friday the firm filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington seeking to block the order from taking effect.
Lawyers from Munger, Tolles & Olson are representing Susman in the litigation. Munger is the same firm that helped organize an amicus brief filed by more than 500 law firms in support of Perkins Coie. But only a few large law firms signed on that legal filing.
Susman represented Dominion Voting Systems, a voting machine manufacturer, in a major defamation case against Fox News. The conservative cable news channel agreed to pay $787.5 million to Dominion to resolve the lawsuit. Dominion filed the lawsuit over misinformation the cable network spread about its role in the 2020 election, which Mr. Trump has repeatedly said was stolen from him.
“If President Trump’s Executive Orders are allowed to stand, future presidents will face no constraint when they seek to retaliate against a different set of perceived foes,” Susman’s 66-page complaint begins. “What for two centuries has been beyond the pale will become the new normal. Put simply, this could be any of us.”
Mr. Trump is going after law firms that have hired attorneys he perceives as his political enemies, represented causes he has opposed or refused to represent people because of their conservative and right-wing political beliefs. Some firms are also being targeted for their hiring practices that advance the principle of having a diverse work force.
The president has said repeatedly that diversity, equity and inclusion policies in hiring are illegal and discriminatory and that he intends to get rid of them. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in what has been seen as a related move, sent letters to 20 law firms last month requesting information about their D.E.I. practices.
Four of the firms that reached deals with Mr. Trump — Kirkland, Latham, Shearman and Simpson Thacher — had each received one of those letters. In settling, Mr. Trump said the E.E.O.C. had agreed not to pursue claims against those four firms. Later in the day, the E.E.O.C. announced a separate settlement with the four firms.
Law professors and others in the legal industry have praised the firms that are fighting the administration while criticizing those that have settled. The critics say the law firms that settle have succumbed to pressure tactics by the administration. And each new settlement only encourages Mr. Trump to become even more emboldened in his demands for free legal work.
The Trump administration seems to believe it is “developing a war chest of legal enlistees or conscripts” to do work for it, said Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, who was an author on a recently published paper that called the executive orders unconstitutional retaliatory measures.
“Every kid learns, on the schoolyard, if you cave to a bully they will come back to bully you some more,” said Mr. Koh.
