Big Law Partner Gives Glimpse at In-House Group’s Trump Pushback

When General Counsels United was formed earlier this year, Big Law was reeling from White House executive orders and other punitive actions.

Chatter at the time on various legal industry email lists and message groups was dominated by concern among senior legal executives about the potential erosion of the US rule of law, said Corey Laplante, who has returned to private practice after a half-dozen years at a startup.

Laplante was among a handful of in-house legal leaders who stepped in to create GCU, although he was the only one with prior experience organizing his Big Law colleagues behind a common cause.

“It felt like an energy that could be harnessed,” said Laplante when asked about the impetus for forming GCU. “There was a palpable desire to speak up and advocate for the importance of maintaining an independent legal profession.”

Today, Laplante is among nearly 800 current and former legal chiefs who throughout this year have joined GCU, a bipartisan and private group working behind the scenes to support law firms fighting back against the federal government. Laplante said such firms include ones directly targeted by the Trump administration and others that stepped up to represent those firms and took positions in opposition to the administration, Laplante said.

Laplante recently joined Steptoe LLP as a partner after serving as general counsel and co-CEO for live events recording platform Mixhalo Corp. Yet Laplante said he still remains “heavily involved” with GCU, whose ranks are open to former in-house legal leaders. While GCU’s activities are confidential, preventing Laplante from disclosing internal debate and discussion, he spoke at year-end about how he helped put together a group that’s become a place to generate and “crowdsource ideas and strategies for engagement.”

The power to hire and fire outside counsel is a key tool available to in-house attorneys worried about the rule of law and independence of the US legal system. Laplante praised firms that have challenged “blatantly unconstitutional and politically motivated attacks on speech.” GCU has hosted events to show its support and give those firms the opportunity to pitch its membership, he said.

In the spring, Laplante used his organizational expertise to help GCU enlist hundreds of legal chiefs amid US government broadsides against Big Law, many of which are now on appeal after firms scored early victories in court.

He drew on the work he did almost a decade ago founding and leading The Associates Committee, a member-funded grant foundation that saw more than a 100 junior lawyers pledge to donate a portion of their Big Law earnings to legal aid groups and litigation-focused nonprofits. Laplante, who at the time was an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Wilkinson Stekloff, dissolved The Associates Committee when he joined Mixhalo in 2019.

“You often do not know how many people are willing to step forward until you offer them a vehicle for engagement,” said Laplante, citing the similarities in how GCU and The Associates Committee came together.

Eric Whitaker, who is retiring Jan. 1 as legal chief for biotechnology company 10X Genomics Inc., worked with Laplante and others in getting GCU off the ground.

Whitaker said in an email he’ll remain involved with the group in retirement. “I’m not one to sit around,” said the former top lawyer at Tesla Inc.

Pro Bono Push

Laplante declined to discuss former employer Skadden, which committed at least $100 million to pro bono causes it and the Trump administration support, or any of the other eight firms that reached settlement agreements with the White House totaling nearly $1 billion in free legal services.

While the government’s battles with Big Law have suffered repeated setbacks by firms that have fought back in court, Laplante said the “general perception” that such attacks have abated doesn’t consider the broader fallout from such actions.

“There has been a notable chilling effect on pro bono work, especially pro bono work of particular types,” he said. Laplante noted that GCU’s “membership feels it is important to remind law firms that GCs value their efforts to support and supplement the legal aid community—even when doing so might be controversial or unpopular in the moment.”

Laplante said GCU is monitoring litigation and related attacks on firms and the judiciary as its members look for new ways to share their thoughts and use their influence. The group expects to co-host some events next year with prominent litigator Neel Chatterjee’s Law Firm Partners United, a group of Big Law partners pushing back against certain Trump administration directives.

“GCU is an inspiring group,” said Chatterjee, who recently joined King & Spalding. He said LFPU is working with GCU to “provide some informal advice and discuss areas of common interest.” Such groups are important because they show the legal community and larger public that “lawyers care about the rule of law and will rise to defend it through collective action,” Chatterjee said.

Transcending Politics

Laplante said GCU has Republicans and Democrats in its ranks but admitted in the early days prior to its formation that some legal leaders in other forums expressed concern that executive orders emanating from Washington could be a political issue and therefore not an “appropriate topic of discussion.”

No one in GCU is citing that concern now, Laplante said. “This has nothing to do with politics,” he said. “It is about something much bigger and more enduring.”

Laplante referenced a recent ruling by US District Judge Beryl Howell, who is overseeing a case involving Perkins Coie and the Justice Department, in which she stated “the importance of independent lawyers to ensuring the American judicial system’s fair and impartial administration of justice has been recognized in this country since its founding era.”

“There is a collective understanding that this issue transcends politics,” said Laplante about his role organizing “principled lawyers” in the private sector. “It’s about refusing to allow the rule of law to give way to a governance by whim.”