In March and April 2025, the Trump Administration issued a series of
executive orders directed at various law firms that had represented clients or
undertaken actions with which the President disagreed. Those executive orders
imposed various sanctions capable of destroying the firms financially. The
Administration also threatened numerous other law firms with similar types of
executive orders.
Although a few law firms challenged the executive orders in court, the majority
of firms targeted by the President entered into informal settlement agreements
whereby the firms promised to provide between $40 million and $125 million worth
of free “pro bono legal services” to causes supported by the President. In return,
the President either revoked any sanction-containing executive orders or withheld
from issuing such orders.
This Essay examines the propriety of these pro bono agreements from several
perspectives. First, this Essay considers the voluntary nature of pro bono and
examines the propriety of the executive branch coercing private lawyers to accede
to particular pro bono obligations. Second, this Essay discusses the nature of pro
bono activities as a means of assisting indigent individuals and considers whether
presidential efforts to direct how private law firms fulfill their pro bono obligations
constitute an improper privatization of the executive branch’s policy goals,
particularly given presidential cuts to and curtailment of conventional public means
of fulfilling those policy goals. Third, this Essay considers whether and to what
extent the executive orders and settlement agreements discussed herein violate hard
or soft principles of international law. The Essay concludes with brief suggestions
about how to proceed.

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