Interviews with over 60 lawyers and 30 nonprofits show legal aid groups now have fewer resources to defend the vulnerable.
When the Texas Civil Rights Project needed lawyers to help dozens of people arrested during U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, legal director Dustin Rynders turned to a familiar strategy. He contacted major law firms that for decades had provided free legal services to nonprofits like his.
On that April day in Houston, he called his usual contacts, many at firms that had previously handled challenges to Trump’s immigration policies. Before Trump’s return to the White House, they typically offered swift “pro bono,” or free, legal help – a standard public service provided by elite U.S. firms.
This time, they all declined. “We are just handling the cases ourselves at this point,” Rynders said.
In March and April, Trump issued a series of executive orders targeting law firms he considers adversaries, the first such attacks by a U.S. president against the legal profession. Some of the orders lashed out at firms for donating their time to cases involving immigration, transgender rights and the January 6 attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol, claiming this legal work undermined U.S. interests.
Months later, the aftershocks threaten lasting damage to America’s tradition of mobilizing free lawyers to challenge government actions on behalf of the vulnerable.
Dozens of major law firms, wary of political retaliation, have scaled back pro bono work, diversity initiatives and litigation that could place them in conflict with the Trump administration, a Reuters investigation found. Many firms are making a strategic calculation: withdraw from pro bono work frowned on by Trump, or risk becoming the next target.
Reuters interviewed more than 60 lawyers, reviewed 50 law firm websites, contacted more than 70 nonprofits and analyzed millions of court records to compile an authoritative account of the fallout from Trump’s intimidation of Big Law.
Fourteen civil rights groups said the law firms they count on to pursue legal challenges are hesitating to engage with them, keeping their representation secret or turning them down altogether in the wake of Trump’s pressure, according to interviews with the nonprofits and a review of filings they have made in court.
In an analysis of court dockets, Reuters also found that Big Law firms have pulled back sharply from litigation against the federal government. That’s a departure from Trump’s first term, when the nation’s largest firms were often involved in challenges to his directives. Now, they’re mostly on the sidelines amid an avalanche of lawsuits contesting administration policies spanning immigration, funding cuts to nongovernmental organizations and attempts to fire tens of thousands of federal workers.
The retreat has been painful for the nonprofit advocacy groups challenging Trump’s sweeping assertions of executive authority, limiting their resources for researching legal arguments, preparing briefs and pursuing litigation. Such groups offer legal aid to low-income communities and have long relied on pro bono support.
USA: How Trump’s crackdown on law firms is undermining legal defenses for the vulnerable
