Above the Law: “There is a version of the Biglaw capitulation story where the nine firms that bent a knee to Donald Trump did some pro bono work on behalf of veterans, ate a news cycle, and moved on. That is the version the firms have been selling since jump, but the reality is quite a bit different. Today, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Rep. Jamie Raskin, and Sen. Adam Schiff sent a letter to Skadden executive partner Jeremy London, the third such letter, for those keeping score, asking the firm to explain how it advised Intel on handing the Commerce Department a 10 percent equity stake in the company while simultaneously doing free legal work for that same Commerce Department. The lawmakers would like an answer by August 4, but, based on Skadden’s track record… they should not hold their breath…

A refresher on how we got here, because the ledger is worth restating in full. When Trump started issuing unconstitutional executive orders designed to bring the legal profession to heel, a handful of firms — Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey — sued and are winning, repeatedly. More than twice as many bent a knee instead. Paul Weiss went first, settling six days after Trump’s executive order for $40 million in pro bono services and the elimination of its DEI programs. Skadden followed with $100 million — preemptively, before any order existed — plus a pledge to fund at least five Skadden Fellows a year, which promptly cost the Skadden Foundation its executive director. Willkie Farr and Milbank each matched Skadden’s $100 million, also preemptively. Then Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher, and A&O Shearman came in at $125 million apiece — $500 million total, with their EEOC DEI investigations conveniently evaporating in the process — and Cadwalader rounded out the group at $100 million. Kirkland, it later emerged, tried to recruit the rest of Biglaw into the deal, and it and Simpson hired a top Trump fundraiser’s lobbying shop on the way in. Grand total: $940 million in pro bono payola for whichever causes strike the president’s fancy…”