On The Merits

On The Merits

On The Merits takes you behind the scenes of the legal world and the inner workings of law firms. This podcast offers in-depth analysis on the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the business of law and the legal industry overall. You'll gain insights into how the latest government actions, policies, and business developments are impacting the industry and hear from leading attorneys, legal scholars, industry experts, and our own team of journalists as they share their perspectives on the forces driving change.

Episodes

May 20, 2025 14 mins
Dozens of law firms have sought to de-emphasize, or outright kill, their diversity initiatives since the Supreme Court's 2023 affirmative action decision—and especially since Donald Trump retook office this year and started issuing punitive executive orders that mention them. However, one firm is now doing the opposite. Susman Godfrey announced last week it would expand its annual prize awarded to law students of color, even th...
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We're starting to see the impact of a string of deals reached over the last two months between President Donald Trump and top law firms. Some firms appear to be moving on—and even thriving—after pledging hundreds of millions of dollars in free legal services on causes backed by the White House to avoid punitive executive orders like those Trump has lobbed at others. At least three firms that made deals are primed to cash in on S...
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The Trump administration's attacks on law firms are having ripple effects on the general counsel whose companies employ those firms. Top attorneys at many large companies may be considering whether to switch the firms they use as outside counsel, according to Bloomberg Law reporter Brian Baxter. In some cases, GCs don't want to work with a firm that's under attack from President Donald Trump; in other cases, they may feel uncomf...
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Shortly after law firms started striking deals for free legal services with the White House, Bloomberg Law reporter Meghan Tribe appeared on our podcast, On The Merits, to talk about how much ambiguity there was around what the firms were agreeing to and how these agreements would be enforced. Now, Tribe and her colleague Brian Baxter have seen a copy of one of these deals but many unanswered questions remain. However, we do ...
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The legal industry is in a state of tremendous flux after just 100 days of the second Trump administration, with the biggest law firms in the country under attack and the Department of Justice's independence in question. Three Bloomberg Law reporters covering three different beats teamed up to write a story chronicling everything that's been happening in the legal world since Donald Trump retook office earlier this year and wher...
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Many students at elite law schools end up working in Big Law for at least a spell. The Trump administration's attacks on the industry, and deals with some of its top players, are making the choice of where to start their careers much more complicated. Students are stuck between two very uncertain options: go to a firm that struck a deal with the White House, despite concerns about a lack of principles; or, go to a firm that's fi...
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Judge James Boasberg began the process of holding Trump administration officials in contempt of court last week as he struggles to get them to follow his orders around the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members. That contempt process was halted a few days later by an appellate court, but Boasberg's actions raised questions about how it might play out if he or another federal judge did eventually fine or attempt to jail rec...
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Like a run on a bank, law firms can quickly collapse if a few rainmakers pick up and take their books of business elsewhere—a vicious cycle that's hard to stop once it gets going. That's the takeaway from a law review article by Yale professor John Morley. He says a partner exodus can happen quickly because there's a huge financial incentive not to be one of the last partners remaining at a firm. That dynamic is on many partners'...
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Law firms are striking deals with President Trump to avoid getting hit with a punitive executive order, and all of these deals include pledges of tens of millions of dollars in pro bono legal work. In this quickly changing landscape, it appears that the biggest law firm in the country, Kirkland & Ellis, is considering one of these commitments to the White House. However, the details of how these deals will work in practice are sca...
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"I cannot imagine a worse deal than the one that Skadden came away with." That's the opinion of one of the law firm's own associates, Rachel Cohen. The Chicago-based finance lawyer has grabbed the spotlight by criticizing Skadden and Paul Weiss for reaching agreements with President Donald Trump as he targets Big Law through a series of executive orders. She's also slammed others for staying quiet, even as three major firms fight ...
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The US legal industry was already in a tough spot before President Donald Trump started attacking Big Law firms. Gloomy economic conditions and tariff-related uncertainty quickly tanked law firm leaders' expectations for a rebound that followed Trump's election. They're looking to stay off the president's target list in a wave of executive orders, while navigating a slowdown in deals activity and across practice groups. "From cauti...
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President Donald Trump has targeted major law firms in his second term in unprecedented ways. He hit three Big Law firms with executive orders that pose potentially existential threats to those firms. Then on March 21, the Trump administration issued a broad memo targeting any lawyer who files “frivolous, unreasonable, and even vexatious litigation against the United States.” On this podcast episode we’re talking about yet another ...
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After Donald Trump won the presidential election, dealmakers at corporations—and the Big Law lawyers that represent them—were optimistic about the prospects for increased corporate mergers and acquisitions. But the first two months of 2025 have fallen far short of expectations. Not only have deal tallies been lower than hoped, they are the lowest in five years. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Law's Mahira ...
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The White House has now hit several of the largest law firms in the world with directives that strip their attorneys of security clearances and order federal agencies to scrap contracts they hold with the firms' clients. Paul Weiss is the most recent target, but there's reason to believe it won't be the last. Bloomberg Law reporter Tatyana Monnay says it's now clear that "there's no firm too big to be attacked." In an executive ord...
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Kirkland & Ellis, the world's largest law firm by revenue, brought in more than $100 million last year from just one of its clients: Blackstone Inc. That's more than double the amount Kirkland earned from the private equity giant in 2023. The dollar amount itself is eye-popping, but also notable is that we even know this information at all. Blackstone was required to disclose the payments in investor filings late last month because...
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The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a mainstay of corporate culture for the last quarter-century, and has cost companies millions, sometimes even billions, of dollars in fines. And that’s before you start counting the lawyers’ fees. This law, used to prevent US businesses from engaging in bribery to win foreign business, has seen a major uptick in enforcement over the last 25 years. And, over that period, it has become a maj...
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Houston's legal market wasn't always one of the most competitive arenas in Big Law. But today, 14 of the 15 largest law firms by revenue have an office in Space City. The market's growth has mirrored the explosion of the country's energy industry over the past decade or so. And the competition among law firms continues to evolve, as the biggest firms fight for their share of a market once dominated by local firms. On this episode o...
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The federal workforce has been hit with a wrecking ball since Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency started its campaign to fire and furlough federal employees. Meanwhile, law firms are seeing a flood of resumes from attorneys who have lost their jobs and from lawyers who want to leave behind the new instability of federal employment. However, law firms have limits to how many attorneys they can hire, especially when thos...
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The sports business is booming. You’ve probably seen the headlines. An NFL team sold for $6 billion, and private equity is pouring money into almost anything that involves a ball or a stick. For law firms, that means opportunity. More Big Law firms view the business of sports as a target for the types of megadeals that drive revenue. Naturally, there's a lot more competition coming for a practice area that was once dominated by onl...
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Delaware has been the US corporate capital for about a century. But a wave of high-profile departures—amid a barrage of attacks from Elon Musk—has many members of the state's corporate community worried about the future. Although the world's richest man has been trying to provoke a corporate exodus for more than a year, the increasingly powerful Musk isn't the only critic of recent Delaware court rulings. Other stakeholders, such a...
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