A&O Shearman’s Trump Work to Exclude Tariffs, Firm’s Leaders Say

Global law firm A&O Shearman will not work directly for the US government or handle trade agreements as part of its deal with the Trump administration to commit $125 million in free services, the firm’s leaders said Wednesday in an internal meeting.

The Trump deal does not encompass trade or other government work, Senior Partner Khalid Garousha, Managing Partner Hervé Ekué, and US Chair Adam Hakki said during a town hall meeting with A&O Shearman associates, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The firm’s leaders held a pair of meetings to address junior lawyers’ concerns about the agreement with Trump, in which the firm pledged free legal work to causes backed by the White House. They said there’s no deadline for the firm to make good on that promise, suggesting the work may extend beyond Trump’s remaining time in office and will be difficult to quantify.

An A&O Shearman spokesman declined to comment.

Major law firms have committed $940 million in legal services in a series of deals with Trump, seeking to avoid punitive executive orders like those targeting other firms and to resolve federal probes into diversity programs. The president has suggested he’ll tap the firms to work on trade issues stemming from his tariff war and in efforts to ramp up coal mining.

“I think we’re going to try to use these very prestigious firms to help us with trade,” Trump said during an April 10 Cabinet meeting. “We have a lot of countries, but we want to make deals that are proper for the United States.”

The deals with nine law firms—announced by Trump via Truth Social and detailed by firms in internal emails—have raised questions about the kinds of matters that lawyers will be expected to take on. The leaders of Kirkland & Ellis and Milbank LLP told their lawyers after the deals were announced that the firms would have full control over decisions about clients and cases.

“To be clear, we as a firm will select our clients in honoring our obligations under these agreements,” A&O’s leaders said April 11 in a firmwide email, shortly after Trump announced the deal. “They do not impose any limitations on the types of work, pro bono or otherwise, that the firm will perform across the spectrum.”

A&O Shearman joined Kirkland, Latham & Watkins, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in a joint deal with the White House, pledging $125 million apiece. The firms, which were facing Equal Employment Opportunity Commission inquiries into their diversity programs, also pledged they will not discriminate against clients on a political basis, and that they would avoid “illegal DEI discrimination and preferences,” according to Trump.

“We firmly believe that agreements of this nature contribute to the degradation of the rule of law in the United States,” a group of A&O Shearman associates said in a letter to the firm’s leaders shortly before the deal was announced. “Likewise, we firmly believe that a similar agreement would be detrimental to A&O Shearman’s business interests both in the United States and internationally, in terms of client relationships, employee retention, recruitment, and the firm’s US and global reputation, both now and in the future.”