After the Notorious Nine Biglaw firms traded their principles to curry favor with the Trump administration, the question on everyone’s mind remained: what, exactly, were they going to do for the administration? The firms offered free legal services — in amounts upward of $125 million each — to vaguely defined conservative-friendly causes. Publicly, the firms downplayed the agreements, telling legislators that they would retain ultimate authority over their pro bono representations and, often, pointing to specific, benign causes like “veterans’ charities” as examples of the work expected.
Meanwhile, the administration itself indicated that they felt the work would cover everything from defending police brutality cases to personal legal services for Trump to call upon after leaving office. What were these firms supposed to be doing to fulfill their pro bono payola obligations?
We might have a bit more insight into this matter, following an email sent around to Kirkland attorneys seeking volunteers to help out with a new engagement for the conservative think tank The Goldwater Institute. Presumably, if the $125 million bill ever comes due, this is the sort of work the firm will point to.
The right-leaning think tank takes its name from Barry “Landslide” Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential candidate campaign so spectacularly stomped by LBJ because the majority of the country thought the odds were better than even that he’d launch a nuclear war just for kicks. While his defeat laid the groundwork for the conservative movement’s later successes, Goldwater remained something of an unvarnished libertarian. He’s the sort of guy who would look at the Trump administration and declare “on second thought, maybe extremism is a vice.” The Goldwater Institute shares the libertarian tilt, and many of its efforts on the part of individuals fighting stupid regulations are laudable, like when the organization fought for lawyers seeking licenses held up over stupid rules about foreign law degrees. They also launch stupid attacks on “DEI” and campaign finance laws.
Libertarians, like clocks, are right a couple times a day and we just have to celebrate when that moment rolls around.
The specific project Kirkland has taken on falls within the Institute’s more even-keeled work. The message from the firm’s Pro Bono Coordinator explains that the firm is working for the Goldwater Institute to produce a 50-state survey of civil jury trial protections. The organization has a history of fighting to protect the individual’s right to a trial by jury. In practice, this amounts to pushing back against the administrative adjudications some states employ to resolve public rights questions quickly without clogging up courts with inefficient litigation. Instead, civil jury trial purists would say, we should bog down the system with constant Bleak House property litigation… for freedom! It’s bad policy, but in the grand scheme of causes that a firm could lend its services to help, it’s not awful.
And it’s far superior to Kirkland’s free work as Junior Deputies for the Commerce Department. That project involved giving the administration direct services, a spiritual violation of the vague commitments to charitable work and arguably a very real violation of 31 U.S. Code § 1342, the federal law that bars agencies from accepting unpaid services unless someone is literally on fire. The statute prevents the government from accepting free services unless conditions “imminently threaten the safety of human life or the protection of property,” and papering up a trade deal doesn’t come close.
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But the test of these agreements still hasn’t arrived. Volunteering for a conservative think tank or representing the government will earn these firms enough goodwill to impress whichever Stephen Miller intern is charged with monitoring Biglaw compliance, but it’s not going to hit that $125 million figure. The moment of truth for all these deals arrives when the administration comes to the firm with a specific request and the firm has to decide whether or not it plays ball. Maybe that day won’t come, but if it does, it’s hard to believe the White House is going to be satisfied with “we’d rather not do that, please accept this survey of state civil jury laws instead.”
Earlier: Biglaw Firms Surrendering To Trump Furiously Backpedaling: ‘LOL, What Pro Bono Deals?’
Paul Weiss & Kirkland Doing Free Trump Commerce Department Work As Part Of ‘Please Don’t Hurt Us, Daddy’ Deals
Trump’s Biglaw Bootlickers Say Quiet Part Out Loud In Letters To Congress
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.