Last week, a federal judge in Washington ruled that a subsequent executive order Mr. Trump signed targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, which is also aligned with Democrats, was likely unconstitutional and issued a restraining order halting it.
But two days later, Mr. Trump signed a nearly identical executive order against Paul, Weiss. Mr. Trump said he was taking the action to punish the firm for its ties to a lawyer who had pushed for him to be indicted and another who had brought a lawsuit against Jan. 6 rioters. The order barred the firm’s lawyers from dealing with the federal government and raised the possibility that its clients would lose their government contracts.
Over the weekend, the leaders of the top law firms in New York and Washington were in constant contact as they tried to figure out how to respond. A range of possibilities were discussed. Amid those discussions, Paul, Weiss reached out to Bill Burck, the co-managing partner of the firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, to represent it.
Quinn Emanuel, one of the few large law firms that has done work for Mr. Trump’s company and top officials in his administration, prepared to represent Paul, Weiss in bringing a suit against the president. At the same time, Mr. Burck engaged in discussions with the White House to potentially broker a deal between Mr. Karp and Mr. Trump. On Wednesday, Mr. Karp and Mr. Trump met in the Oval Office to discuss the framework for an agreement.
In the day that followed, White House aides and Mr. Karp finalized the terms of the agreement.
According to two people familiar with the matter, the White House and Mr. Karp had reached an agreement on the wording of the statement. But despite that agreement, the wording of the statement changed, including a reference to the fact that the firm would “not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies.”
A spokesperson for Paul, Weiss did not respond to a message seeking comment on how the statement changed and Mr. Trump’s statement about how Mr. Karp had criticized Mr. Pomerantz.
Jonah E. Bromwich contributed reporting from New York.
