Heritage-Linked Group Says Big Law Replying to Its Pro Bono Asks

Major law firms are talking with a Heritage Foundation-linked group about free legal services for conservative causes to avoid the appearance of left-leaning political bias in their pro bono engagements, says the group’s leader.

The Oversight Project is asking the firms to work on immigration enforcement and to help challenge companies’ diversity policies, said its president Mike Howell. The goal is to balance what Howell sees as firms’ left-leaning pro bono work with services to his right-leaning group and its allies.

“This would be a monumental injection into center-right legal efforts,” Howell said in an interview. He said he’s received responses from firms and “met with some as well.”

Howell said he reached out to firms within the top 200, including those that struck deals with the Trump White House to avoid punitive actions. He declined to specify how many law firms he’s talking with or name which ones are receptive.

The group has been sending letters to large firms since the president announced a deal with Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison on March 20, asking for help with Trump priorities.

In an earlier interview with Bloomberg News, Howell declined to say whether the White House endorsed his outreach to the firms. Howell told Bloomberg Law he views his efforts as in line with Trump’s populist agenda.

The outreaches offer one potential path open to nine of the biggest US law firms that pledged $940 million in legal services for causes Trump supports. The firms, including Paul Weiss and Kirkland & Ellis, made deals with the president after he threatened security clearances, access to government buildings, and clients’ government contracts at some legal operations.

Four law firms eschewed cutting deals and instead sued Trump, arguing the orders are unconstitutional, with one of them—Perkins Coie—winning a permanent injunction against one of the directives. Trump also ordered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate 20 of the largest firms in the US for diversity practices, including some that eventually pledged free legal services to escape the scrutiny.

Customized Approach

Oversight Project, which Heritage spun off, has been reaching out to large law firms since Trump announced a deal with Paul Weiss. Howell said some firms responded by telling his group to essentially “screw off” while others said they were willing to review proposals for pro bono engagements.

He said he’s trying a customized approach by proposing activities that fall in line with a firm’s past pro bono work. However, the process isn’t moving as quickly as he would like, Howell said, as firms hesitate to take on matters that could be seen as too political. The Oversight Project has yet to file any lawsuits in coordination with the firms.

Representatives for the nine firms that made deals with Trump didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Oversight Project’s efforts.

Some firm leaders have told congressional Democrats they will meet their obligations to Trump in ways that don’t significantly differ from their historical activity.

“Kirkland will continue to provide pro bono and other legal services on a non-partisan basis to a wide range of underserved populations,” W. Neil Eggleston, a DC-based Kirkland partner, said in an April 28 letter to US Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

Howell’s Path

Howell in 2018 joined Heritage, the think tank that spearheaded Project 2025, a collaboration of more than 100 conservative groups that offered a playbook for Trump’s second term to “rescue the country from the grip of the radical left.”

He joined after working as a lawyer in the Department of Homeland Security’s office of general counsel during Trump’s first term. The Duke University and Emory Law School graduate was the point of contact for all congressional oversight and investigations, according to his biography on Heritage’s website.

Before joining the Trump administration, he worked for five years on Capitol Hill for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and for the House Oversight Committee.

The former House Oversight chairman, Jason Chaffetz, leads the Oversight Project’s advisory board. He didn’t return a request for comment.

FOIA Blitz

Oversight Project as of March 31 formed a separate 501(c)(4) nonprofit from Heritage’s 501(c)(3) to widen the scope of its fundraising efforts and be more explicit in its political advocacy, Howell said.

The group’s goal is “to expose and root out corruption in government, among elected officials, and in our most influential organizations to ensure power resides with the American people,” according to its website.

A top target has been President Joe Biden’s administration. For example, Oversight Project pushed for the release of audio from Biden’s interview with former Special Counsel Robert Hur, according to a statement announcing the group’s separation from Heritage.

The statement also touted the group’s filing of nearly 100 lawsuits and more than 100,000 Freedom of Information Act requests. Of the group’s FOIA requests, 252 have sought communications between Big Law firms and Biden administration agencies, according to records requests tracked by DC-based research firm PoliScio Analytics.

“We want to understand how embedded they were,” Howell said of the law firms. “We hold the general view that the legal industry hasn’t served both sides fairly.”