The General Counsels Strike Back
By Michael Popok
The revenge of the corporate General Counsel and Chief Legal Officers is here—and it’s long overdue.
What we’re witnessing is a major, coordinated move by the general counsel of some of the world’s most powerful corporations. They are fighting back. They’re cutting off the spigot of high-paying legal work to those elite firms—Paul Weiss, Kirkland & Ellis, Sidley Austin, Skadden Arps, Wilkie Farr, Sullivan & Cromwell, and others—that sold out the profession by appeasing Trump.
These firms gave Trump what amounts to a billion dollars in free legal services. And now, they’re finally paying the price. We have new reporting that a coalition—many of them women general counsel—have made a collective decision: No more business for collaborator and appeasers. These are the people who control the purse strings. It’s not the CEOs or board chairs who decide where the litigation dollars go. It's the legal departments. I should know—I was Deputy General Counsel and global head of litigation for a major company. I’ve been in the room deciding which law firms get work, and which do not.
This group is standing up. They’re punishing the law firms that gave in when they should have stood tall, that sacrificed their oath to be zealous advocates. And they’re redirecting tens—if not hundreds—of millions of dollars in legal work to firms that did stand up. That did fight.
Let’s start with Brooke Cucinella, General Counsel for Citadel. That’s Ken Griffin’s Citadel, a financial powerhouse. She made clear that Citadel is taking work away from firms that bowed to Trump. She wants law firms that fight—for her, for her clients—and not for autocrats or agendas.
Eleven major corporations—Oracle, McDonald’s, Microsoft among them—are voting with their feet. They’re pulling business from those 14 firms that cut deals with the Trump administration to avoid being blacklisted from federal contracts. These companies know appeasement didn’t work in the 1930s and it sure as hell doesn’t work now.
At a recent gathering of female general counsel, the bullseye was placed squarely on Paul Weiss. That firm was the first to settle—for $45 million in free legal service, the one that gave Trump his first taste of legal appeasement—and it ignited a chain reaction of capitulation across Big Law. That decision infuriated the general counsel community.
New reporting from The Wall Street Journal shows that Kirkland & Ellis went a step further: they actively lobbied other law firms to join them in bending the knee to President Trump. Strength in numbers, they thought. But the opposite is happening. Firms like Latham & Watkins—one I used to work with and respect—are now being punished. Microsoft has pulled tens of millions in legal business from them. That’s real, measurable fallout.
Then there’s Sullivan & Cromwell. Rob Giuffra—who leads the firm—was negotiating on behalf of Paul Weiss to cut a deal with Trump while simultaneously representing Trump himself in his appeal of the 34-count felony conviction. Within his own firm, that dual loyalty caused a storm. He reportedly admitted that Trump’s executive orders penalizing these firms were unconstitutional and would never hold up in court—so why negotiate with him at all?
The White House, when reached for comment, responded: “We didn’t realize that was his position.” Exactly. These firms tried to save themselves, are lying to their own partners and clients, and have made themselves radioactive as the fight to survive.
On the flip side, the law firms that stood up and fought are being rewarded—Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Susman Godfrey, and Jenner & Block. Heroes. If your kid is into legal superheroes, those are the posters to put on the wall.
These firms challenged Trump’s executive orders in court and won at both the preliminary and permanent injunction stages—before judges like Beryl Howell, Richard Leon, and others in D.C. federal courts. And in her ruling, Judge Howell made the stakes clear: “What client could ever look you in the eye again and believe you’ll fight for their interest with zealous advocacy, unyielding, if you rolled over for the federal government?”
That’s what Microsoft is asking. They’re in front of the government all the time on antitrust matters. They want lawyers who will fight, not lawyers who are calculating how not to offend President Trump.
We’re in payback season. And I’m here for it. So are you.
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Yay! When you give in prematurely, you miss out. It's like going to a movie, standing in line, buying a ticket and then leaving and not getting to see how it ended. I want to see how this ends and anyone who gave in before the fight started is a chicken!
Stand up and fight. No amount of money is worth losing yourself in the process. I know there are those who would disagree having taken the easy road thinking that there was money in it if they just caved. But, once you cave to a Narcissist, they will keep coming back to the trough and asking for more and you will never be let off the hook and you will never get the promised reward as it will always be just out of your reach to keep you coming forward and asking for more abuse.