Cowardly Fuckers get fucked. Who could have seen this coming?
The big Law firms who knuckled under to Trump are learning the lessons from Goodfellas (the Voodoo Lounge lesson)
Edited to add: I want to clarify that I do believe that lawyers or attorneys are important, and that they perform much needed work to protect people and their rights from all sorts of abuses.
This post is not intended to besmirch the entire field. My wrath below is focused on the cowards of the firms that are caving in to the pressure and executive orders of the Trump administration. They deserve all the discomfort that they have coming, and they have no one to blame for their current predicament besides themselves.
In a prior life, as a product manager, I was the 30(b) 6 deponent in patent troll lawsuit against my company. One of the firms that is standing tall and proud, Perkins Coie, was the counsel on my side of the table, and they were AWESOME to have in my corner. It warms my heart that they are standing firm.
Now, on to my rant…
If you lie down with dogs, you can’t be surprised to wake up with fleas.
I am having a really fucking busy week at work (like all of them lately), but I saw this gem hit my inbox from the Times: Law Firms Made Deals with Trump. Now He Wants More from Them (gifted link).
In the way back, I dated a lawyer (1990s), and I can tell you it was fucking terrible. She lived to argue. She would turn every little issue into a full blown battle Royale, and frankly what made it worse was when I just conceded early in the “fight”. That pissed her off to no end, and that would turn to another row about how pathetic I was.
Needless to say, I got out of that toxic environment (she dumped me for a co-worker1) and it was the best fucking thing in my life.
I bring this up because as we have been watching these white shoe top-flight law firms cave to Trump’s attacks with nary even a scintilla of pushback, committing to giving Trump tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in pro-bono work, they seem to have not seen any gangster flicks.
What I am reminded of is the scene from early in Goodfellas:
Because, if they had, they would realize that once you dip your toe in, you are all in with the fucking mob.
And make no mistake about it, the Trump administration is the Mob on mother-fucking steroids.
From the sub-head:
To avoid retribution, big firms agreed to provide free legal services for uncontroversial causes. To the White House, that could mean negotiating trade deals — or even defending the president and his allies.
Uh, yeah, no fucking shit Sherlock.
Look, these fancy pants lawyer dudes (and they are dudes) all were terrified of losing money, so they ponied up to the bar and dropped to their knees to kiss the taint of The Donald, in the hopes that it would inoculate them, and allow them to preserve their business’.
How do you think that went? If you guessed about as well as a fart in church, give yourself a gold star.
Over the last week, he has suggested that the firms will be drafted into helping him negotiate trade deals.
He has mused about having them help with his goal of reviving the coal industry.
And he has hinted that he sees the promises of nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services that he has extracted from the elite law firms — including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher — as a legal war chest to be used as he wishes.
“Have you noticed that lots of law firms have been signing up with Trump: $100 million, another $100 million for damages that they’ve done,” Mr. Trump said at an event last week with coal miners, without specifying what he meant by damages.
Paul Weiss, Skaten, and others, how does it feel to be part of the mob? Feel good? Is that second or third house in the Hamptons worth selling your soul? Did you really think that you were going to come out of this with your dignity intact?
I always thought Lawyers were smart mother-fuckers, who wielded verbal and rhetorical skills to get their clients either off of criminal charges, or to avoid major civil penalties, or to bank huge fees on M&A work. Turns out that these aggressive, type A assholes are timid kittens.
That’s unfair, kittens are cute. Lawyers are just leeches on society2. I will let Mojo Nixon tell it like it is:
If you want some weapons grade copium, this will be a soothing balm for your soul:
All nine firms that reached deals with Mr. Trump declined to comment or did not respond. The other firms that made deals include Latham & Watkins; Milbank; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; A & O Shearman; Kirkland & Ellis; and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
One lawyer directly involved in some of the agreements said he feared that Mr. Trump’s comments could lead to the deals unraveling.
Leaders of some of the firms have seen Mr. Trump’s comments in recent days and are just hoping that Mr. Trump will not follow through and press them to take on work on behalf of the administration, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Bwah ha hahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahaha
They are hoping Mr. Trump doesn’t follow through? Are they that fucking stupid, or are they just delusional.
All to avoid being on the mean side of a blatantly unconstitutional Executive Order.
Oh the humanity.
You bloodsucking leeches are getting a taste of your own medicine, and I am so here for it.
“They thought they made one-shot deals which they would fulfill,” said Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School who was an author of a paper that called executive orders targeting the firms unconstitutional retaliatory measures. “But the administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude.”
Yeah, top tier white-shoe law firms are now Trump’s bitches. I will leave you with this last pull-quote:
It is also not clear how hard and how far Mr. Trump will push the notion that those deals now leave many of the nation’s biggest, most prestigious and best-resourced firms at his beck and call. There is no indication yet that he has sought to deploy any of them on a particular issue.
Oh yeah, he’s got them all in his pocket, to be taken out whenever he wants to play, and Trump is going to be like a cat playing with his mice (these law firms).
What did they really think their acquiescence was going to lead to?
The relationship was dead long before she dumped me, over the phone, and then I found out she had been sleeping with this co-worker on lunchtime trysts. She said she wanted to remain “friends”. I got nuthin.
Yeah, I know this isn’t strictly true, and that there are lots of great attorneys that are essential to the functioning of a free society.
But don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again. — don corleone
Given very recent events, I assume none of them went to Harvard.