Skadden’s Trump Deal Spells Change for Prestigious Fellowship

A four-decade-old launchpad for public interest attorneys is getting an overhaul as part of President Donald Trump’s deal with Wall Street law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

Skadden committed $100 million in pro bono work on causes aligned with Trump’s priorities, the president announced March 28. It also agreed to make changes to its prestigious, left-leaning fellowship program, pledging to include politically conservative participants and dedicate at least five spots to projects like “ensuring fairness” in the justice system and fighting antisemitism.

“I have concerns that the fellowship will be taken away from its core mission of providing desperately needed legal services to people who cannot otherwise afford access to those,” said Leigh Goodmark, a 1995 fellow who is now an associate dean at University of Maryland’s Francis King Carey School of Law.

The program, funded through the Skadden Foundation, supports jobs for 25 to 30 recent graduates per year, most hailing from the country’s top 14 law schools. Fellows partner with nonprofit organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and work on issues including LGBT+, reproductive, and immigrant rights.

The deals by Skadden and three other law firms pledging at least $340 million in pro bono services to stay off of Trump’s target list come as the White House wages a broader war against the legal system and some of its most prominent players.

“Global law firms have for years played an outsized role in undermining the judicial process and in the destruction of bedrock American principles,” Trump said in a March 14 executive order targeting Paul Weiss. The president later revoked the order after the firm committed $40 million to work on the administration’s priority issues. “They have sometimes done so on behalf of clients, pro bono, or ostensibly ‘for the public good'—potentially depriving those who cannot otherwise afford the benefit of top legal talent the access to justice deserved by all,” Trump said.

The news of the Skadden deal was disappointing for many former fellows, who saw it as a capitulation. Skadden, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and Milbank LLP—which reached an agreement with Trump on Wednesday—struck deals before being hit with executive orders. Three other firms have won court orders temporarily blocking Trump directives against them.

Skadden has scrubbed mentions of past fellows and their pro bono projects from its website since Trump announced the deal with the firm.

“It is a further demonstration that they have given up on the rule of law in a fair and free society where one can champion the issues and the causes that one cares about without fear of retribution from the government,” said Lauren Koster, a 2020 Skadden fellow who now runs a public interest boutique.

Skadden did not respond to a request for comment.

Skadden fellows practice public-interest law and often choose lifelong public interest practices or find positions as judges or in academia, the foundation says on its website. “Our goal is to launch public interest careers, and the vast majority of former Fellows devote their whole careers to public service, building on the expertise they developed in their original Fellowship projects.”

Vague ‘Causes’

Trump did not specify the causes that the firms striking deals with the White House will pursue.

“‘Conservative causes’ is something that doesn’t exist anymore,” said Lauren Stiller Rikleen, executive director of Lawyers Defending American Democracy, a legal group that launched during Trump’s first term. “It’s extremist causes. And who gets to decide what those causes are?”

Established conservative public interest legal groups include the American Conservative Union Foundation, the American Foreign Policy Council, and the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. A group linked to the Heritage Foundation has already started asking major law firms to provide $10 million in pro bono work.

The Skadden program, which launched in 1988, hosts fellows for two years. It paid fellows in the 2025 class a base salary of $65,000 per year, according to an archived webpage. The foundation also offers financial support to offset moving costs and professional development opportunities. Fellowship alumni include Senator Cory Booker and Delaware Judge Noel Primos.

Skadden went to Trump to negotiate a deal to head off an executive order targeting its clients with government contracts and the firm’s access to federal buildings like other Big Law counterparts, Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, and Jenner & Block faced last month. Skadden was also one of 20 Big Law firms to receive letters from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on March 17 seeking details on their diversity practices.

The New York-founded firm made more than $3.2 billion in gross revenue in 2023 and doled out more than $5.4 million in profits per equity partner, according to data from The American Lawyer.