House Democrats Urge Sports-Linked Law Firms to Scrap Trump Deals

Sixteen Democratic members of the House of the Representatives on Thursday wrote letters to nine elite, national law firms—all of which represent major sports clients—asserting the firms’ recent deals with President Donald Trump could violate the federal anti-bribery statute, among other criminal laws, and urged them to disavow their deals.

The group is led by U.S. Rep. Dave Min (D-Calif.), who is a former law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and U.S. Rep. April Delaney (D-Md.). Their letters demand the firms reveal whether they have “acknowledged any wrongdoing for representing causes President Trump finds objectionable” and whether they sought or received “any ethical guidance surrounding the prospect of concluding a deal with President Trump, including from any state, federal, or other bar association.”

The firms are Paul Weiss, Skadden Arps, Latham & Watkins, Kirkland & Ellis, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and Milbank.

Paul Weiss, whose chairman is prominent sports attorney Brad Karp, has represented the NFL in several significant litigations, including those involving Brian Flores, Jon Gruden, Tom Brady (Deflategate) and concussions. Skadden Arps has played a similarly instrumental role in sports law, representing the NCAA, major pro leagues and teams. Just last week, Skadden scored a legal win for the Miami Heat in ongoing trademark litigation concerning the word “culture.” As to Latham & Watkins, the firm has represented the major leagues and is counsel to NASCAR in its antitrust dispute with Michael Jordan and 23XI Racing. The other six firms have likewise represented significant clients in the sports industry in deals, litigation and other legal matters.

These firms are considered “elite” (or “white shoe”) in part because their client base tends to feature large, blue-chip businesses that have the capacity and willingness to pay expensive hourly rates. These firms have also attained an “elite” (some would grumble “snobby”) moniker because they usually focus their recruitment of prospective associates at the highest-ranked law schools and often limit hiring to law students who have very high class ranks and GPAs. 

But these elite firms aren’t immune to basic business realities.

Although they market themselves as exceptional and unique, these firms are largely interchangeable, just like other “elite” firms with similar profiles. They all tend to offer the same types of legal services and feature attorneys who possess profiles and accomplishments that resemble each other. Clients, including sports leagues and franchises, can move their business from one firm to another. This happens when a prominent partner leaves one firm for another and takes their clients or when a client is simply wooed to switch firms. The value of these firms is predicated on their client base, meaning a loss of a major client can have a devastating impact.

That dynamic has posed a conundrum. Trump wants to punish law firms for representing clients whom he opposes and for utilizing hiring and retention practices that incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion. Lawyers for Perkins Coie, for example, contributed to 2016 opposition research claiming Trump had ties to Russia, and Covington & Burling provided legal services to special counsel Jack Smith in his criminal prosecutions of Trump. 

Trump has issued executive orders that suspend security clearances for attorneys at these firms, limit firms’ access to government buildings and impose heightened governmental review of federal contracts with firms’ clients. These moves are designed to make it more difficult and costly for firms to represent clients and to scare clients and prospective hires away from them. 

In response, the nine firms cut deals with Trump. The president agreed to back off but in exchange, each firm agreed to provide millions of dollars—some firms going as high as $125 million—in what are termed “pro bono” legal services for causes that Trump supports and to revise or scrap DEI initiatives. 

Yet other elite law firms have fought back against Trump through the legal system.

Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Susman Godfrey and Jenner & Block—all of which represent major sports clients, including the NFL, NHL and pro franchises—have legally challenged Trump’s executive orders that target them. They argue these orders violate the U.S. Constitution, including the First Amendment, by (among other things) waging retaliation and viewpoint discrimination and interfering with free association. The firms stress that the right to counsel is foundational to the American legal system, and that is true for clients who are controversial and those who are simply disliked by the President.

Building on those points, the 16 representatives contend the deals are unenforceable under contracts law because they were signed “under duress.” The firms are depicted as acquiescing “to an abuse of federal power” which raises “serious questions about how or whether your firm would represent clients or take on matters that might be seen as antagonistic to President Trump or his agenda.” To that point, the members assert the deals undermine the foundation of the legal system, including because of “the chilling effect” the deals may have on the “availability of legal services” for businesses and persons “targeted by the Trump administration.”

The letters also warn the firms that their attorneys could face “civil and criminal liability under state and federal law.” Among the statutes cited are the federal anti-bribery statute, which prohibits “corruptly offering and promising something of value to public officials,” such as the President and his staff, “with the intent to influence their official acts.” The Hobbs Act, which deems illegal aiding and abetting public officials who engage in extortion, is also mentioned. In addition, laws criminalizing the defrauding the public of government officials’ honest services and racketeering are mentioned. The letters maintain that firm attorneys who negotiated with the President could have furthered a bribery scheme.

The letters follow similar letters sent last week by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). Blumenthal and Raskin repudiated the firms, writing, “Your capitulation puts you in the distasteful company of several other large law firms who have decided to permit President Trump to suppress their speech and dictate who they can and cannot take as clients in blatant violation of the rights guaranteed to all Americans by the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution.”

With some firms cutting deals with Trump and others taking him to court, it will be interesting to see which approach history will judge the wiser. The reputations of these firms and the attorneys who lead them will be shaped accordingly. 

Sports clients will be watching, too. Like other clients and perhaps even more so given their ties to athletics, leagues, teams and other prominent sports businesses demand attorneys who will stand up and fight for what they think is right.

And they can always take their business elsewhere.