Freshfields knew when it stood up for the besieged US law firm Perkins Coie last month that it risked putting a target on its own back.
Perkins Coie was fighting an executive order from US President Donald Trump that banned it from government business and properties because it had represented Trump adversaries including Hillary Clinton and George Soros.
London-founded Freshfields became the only one of the world’s top 20 law firms by revenue to put its head above the parapet by signing a court filing — known as an amicus brief — supporting Perkins Coie. It later doubled down, signing briefs backing Jenner & Block, Wilmer Hale and Susman Godfrey; other law firms the president had targeted.
The furore comes as Freshfields — one of the UK’s five “magic circle” elite law firms — has begun to make serious inroads in the US after a series of splashy hires. The decision underscores how the expansion, which has already changed the firm’s finances by requiring partners based elsewhere to subsidise American growth, has now started to change Freshfields’ culture, too. It has caused a firm that traces its roots back to 18th-century London to start deciding where it stands on international political issues.
In signing the brief, Freshfields “has done something that the large US law firms, which it is trying to be like, had decided not to do”, a lawyer at a rival firm said.
Freshfields declined to comment on its decision. Amicus briefs, or “friend of the court” documents, are used by third parties with an interest in a case to convey their views to a judge.
After years of trying to break into America, a watershed moment for Freshfields came in 2019 when it poached star M&A lawyer Ethan Klingsberg from Cleary Gottlieb, according to rivals. The hire — enabled by Freshfields’ 2017 decision to modify its “lockstep” pay model that rewards partners broadly on seniority rather than performance — was transformative. Klingsberg brought with him top-drawer clients such as Google.
Since then Freshfields has hired more than 50 top partners from US competitors such as Skadden, Davis Polk, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore, offering them pay packages that can stretch to double-digit millions of dollars. It has also spent large sums to match some US rivals’ pay for more junior lawyers. It opened offices in Silicon Valley in 2020 and Boston this year, taking it to six offices stateside. About a fifth of its partners are in the US.
The US push has led to high-profile work such as advising Google parent Alphabet on its planned $32bn acquisition of cyber security start-up Wiz. Freshfields is so far this year the world’s sixth-largest law firm by the total value of M&A deals it has advised on, according to data provider Dealogic, and 13th in North America.
But expansion has come at a cost. Partners in the rest of the world have had to accept that funnelling money into the expensive US market will, at least for a time, dilute the profitability of the rest of the firm, leaving them in effect subsidising the high salaries paid to their American colleagues. The firm’s challenge is to show it can become as profitable in the US as elsewhere, or even more so.
Global staff costs have surged, up almost 60 per cent since 2019, according to corporate filings, alongside revenue growth of 42 per cent in the same period. Profits have increased by a more moderate 32 per cent in that time.
Freshfields lags behind many US rivals on average profits per equity partner, a key measure of law firms’ success. In 2024, Freshfields’ stood at £2.4mn, according to an estimate from Law.com. Kirkland & Ellis recorded $9mn in PEP for the year.
Beyond its financial impact, the US expansion is shifting the balance of power within Freshfields. An early signal of what some Europe-based staff see as its Americanisation came in 2023 in the wake of the October 7 attack in Israel, when Freshfields joined top American firms in signing a letter to the heads of US law schools that expressed alarm at reports of antisemitism on campuses that they recruited from.
The episode was partly a sign of a generational shift that meant “law firms are now expected to take a view on things”, one Freshfields lawyer said. It was also, they said, “a wake-up call that we had a more US-centric fee earner base”.
Freshfields’ governance structure means that the decision to sign the Perkins Coie amicus brief ultimately fell to Georgia Dawson, a litigator and the firm’s senior partner, whose term runs out next year — meaning she would have to stand for re-election to continue in the role.
The Australian, who is based in London and has previously worked in Hong Kong but never the US, discussed it with a select group of largely US senior lawyers before consulting a broader range of partners, according to people with knowledge of the talks.
Some US-based partners cautioned that it was not a good idea to speak out, as it risked a retaliation that could damage the firm’s brand and business. But the move was expected to be popular among Freshfields’ European staff and clients. Some partners said setting themselves apart from US rivals could become a competitive advantage and ensure the firm was standing on what they thought to be the right side of history.
Colleagues briefed on the decision said Dawson and other partners concluded they should act on principle.
Any retaliation by Trump, or any other fallout from challenging the US government, would have a smaller impact on Freshfields than other top global firms.
The US accounted for less than a fifth of its £2.1bn revenue last year, its accounts show.
And one of the most important parts of its US operation, its antitrust work for Big Tech firms fighting the government, could even stand to benefit from being seen as unafraid to take on Trump.
Since it signed the documents, Freshfields has been approached by partners from law firms that settled with Trump and who want to move, as well as by clients who are unhappy that their counsel capitulated, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. But it is not clear how far the approaches will translate into significant new hires and business.
“Many very impressive lawyers have reached out to us, some of whom are household names, saying they are proud of the firm and would like to be part of it,” a US-based Freshfields partner said.
A client of the firm at a European group said Freshfields’ decision was “a sign of a strong partnership”.
“We like to work with organisations that are willing to take a stand on major policy issues, and yes, we do take that into account,” the client added.
Freshfields has not been the subject of an executive order from Trump — documents that threatened serious consequences such as cutting off security clearances, ending federal contracts and stopping access to government buildings.
Freshfields was, however, one of 20 law firms that received a letter from the acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in March, requesting information about their practices on diversity, equity and inclusion. Many of those firms saw the letters as a signal that they were in the administration’s crosshairs.
Paul Weiss struck a deal after being the target of an executive order. Skadden, Kirkland, Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and A&O Shearman — a magic circle firm whose US ambitions were accelerated by its merger last year with a Wall Street rival — all struck deals after receiving the EEOC letters, even without an executive order.
Typically, the deals have involved pledging pro bono work for Trump-friendly causes in the hope they would be able to continue with business as usual.
The firms that struck deals now face difficult questions.
This month, a Washington, DC district judge permanently blocked the executive order targeting Perkins Coie, saying it violated the US constitution. She expressed concern over the EEOC deals.
She warned that “some clients may harbour reservations about the implications of such deals [with Trump] for the vigorous and zealous representation to which they are entitled from ethically responsible counsel”.
Democratic legislators in the US have said the deals might violate federal and state laws. The German Bar Association said last week that it “appears possible and perhaps even probable that the respective law firms have violated the duty of independence by concluding these deals”.
At Freshfields, a sense of pride about the amicus brief could evaporate at any moment. It has not yet formally responded to the letter it received from the EEOC, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.
If the administration takes action against firms that received EEOC letters and have not struck a deal, Freshfields will be faced with a big test of its changing identity. It will have to decide whether to continue fighting, or to fall into line with the US rivals it is trying to emulate by cutting a deal.
Additional reporting by from Sujeet Indap and Arash Massoudi
