Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison has helped engineer ambitious lawsuits against the firearms industry and provided free legal muscle to gun safety groups and the families of mass shooting victims, allowing them to notch wins against Remington and Smith & Wesson.
Since President Donald Trump targeted Paul Weiss in March, however, prompting firm chairman Brad Karp to cut a controversial deal pledging $40 million in free legal work to support White House priorities, a page on the firm’s website that touted its victories on behalf of gun safety interests has disappeared. Some advocates now fear that the president’s strong-arming will lead Paul Weiss and other firms to curtail such efforts.
“It’s going to have a chilling effect, for sure,” said Robyn Thomas, who spent nearly two decades as executive director and senior legal advisor at Giffords Center to Prevent Gun Violence before leaving in 2022. “Firms are going to operate more quietly and be less aggressive. At least in the short term.” …
The modern gun safety movement relies on the free or reduced cost legal labor, called pro bono work, that firms provide to advocacy groups and individual plaintiffs. States and local governments nationwide depend on this aid from private firms to defend their firearms restrictions. And proactive litigation that involves bringing suits against the gun industry for alleged misconduct is all but impossible without pro bono support. …
Thomas spearheaded the Firearms Accountability Counsel Taskforce, which sought to enlist big law in the gun safety cause, in 2016. Paul Weiss was the first firm to join the taskforce, she said, prompting others to sign on. Thomas said that Karp was a critical early ally and had spent his career “standing up for the vulnerable and the rule of law.”
Trump’s executive order threatened the livelihood of Karp’s employees and even the firm’s existence, Thomas said, forcing him into a terrible choice. While she understands the anger that many in the legal world feel toward Karp for settling with the administration, “the real villain,” she said, is Trump.
— Will Van Sant in Trump’s War on Law Firms May Imperil Gun Suits
Thank you for writing this story. I had not spent much time researching just who was behind this harassment lawfare. President Trump has really made many rich people just go insane.
Now he has the executive authority to dish out. What he has had to put up with.
The rich like their private security team guns. But not yours.
Having a smaller government will not solve our problems. These private rich authoritarians need to be delt with.
If only.
I feel that every politician who fights against the 2nd Amendment should not be allowed to have armed security surrounding them. Just another elitist who believes in the, “it’s okay for me, but not for you.” It is interesting that they all cry about the law, yet they are the ones who are fighting against our rights as set forth in the Constitution. They are all liars if they say they believe in the rule of law.
It is interesting that they all cry about the law, yet they are the ones who are fighting against our rights as set forth in the Constitution. They are all liars if they say they believe in the rule of law.