Five More Big Law Firms Reach Deals With Trump

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. Three firms are fighting Mr. Trump’s executive orders in federal court, and 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 said it intends to also fight it out in court with the Trump administration.

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.

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 have said 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.