NYT:

When some of the nation’s biggest law firms agreed to deals with President Trump, the terms appeared straightforward: In return for escaping the full force of his retribution campaign, the firms would do some free legal work on behalf of largely uncontroversial causes like helping veterans.

Mr. Trump, it turns out, has a far more expansive view of what those firms can be called on to do.

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….

None of the firms have acknowledged any wrongdoing. They were targeted with punitive executive orders or implicit threats for representing or aiding Mr. Trump’s political foes or employing people he sees as having used the legal system to come after him.

The deals have been widely criticized, as they are seen by many in the legal community as unconstitutional and undemocratic. Four firms whom Mr. Trump leveled executive orders against have fought them in court, all quickly receiving rulings from federal judges who temporarily halted them.

But now that nine firms have agreed to deals and committed to nearly $1 billion worth of pro bono legal work, some Trump advisers have started having discussions about a range of options for what the firms’ lawyers can be deployed to work on, according to two people briefed on the matter. That work could include sending the lawyers to help Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or deploying them to aid the Justice Department, they said.

White House officials believe that some of the pro bono legal work could even be used toward representing Mr. Trump or his allies if they became ensnared in investigations, according to the two people….

At Paul Weiss and Skadden, some lawyers are concerned that a showdown with the White House is inevitable. If they are pushed to provide legal work beyond what they agreed to, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters, some lawyers are expected to quit.

Two people said that Brad Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss, was very clear with the firm’s top leadership that his agreement with Mr. Trump was essentially a codification of work that Paul Weiss already does, a message echoed by leaders of other firms about their agreements….

Any work for the administration that gets into policy positions could create conflicts with a firm’s big corporate clients — especially if those clients’ interests are at odds with those of the administration. A group of legal ethics experts made this very point in a so-called amicus brief filed on Friday in support of two law firms that opted to take the Trump administration to court after being hit with an executive order.

And if the administration seeks to require any of the firms to do work for the Justice Department, those that have cases before the department could lose clients that are under federal investigation.

“A firm that can survive only by staying in the president’s good graces,” the professors wrote in their amicus brief, “has incentives that conflict with its lawyers’ stringent fiduciary duties to remain loyal to the interests of their clients, exercise independent judgment, and be truthful and candid in all dealings with the courts.”…