WASHINGTON (AP) — Another major international law firm has reached a deal with President Donald Trump to dedicate at least $100 million in free legal services to causes such as supporting veterans and combating antisemitism, the White House announced Tuesday.
The agreement makes Willkie Farr & Gallagher the third law firm in the last two weeks to cut a deal with the White House to avert sanctions from the U.S. government.
It was reached just two days after leaders at Willkie learned that the White House intended to issue a executive order against the firm, an action that could have carried “potentially grave consequences,” according to an internal email from the firm's executive committee obtained by The Associated Press.
The resolution reflects the differing responses being taken by the legal community as Trump continues to target some of the world's most elite law firms and extract concessions from them, such as the renunciation of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations in hiring and promotion decisions. Many of the firms that have been the subject of Trump's executive orders are associated with lawyers who previously investigated him, either when he was president or between his terms in the White House.
Willkie is home to Doug Emhoff, the husband of 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and Timothy Heaphy, who was chief investigative counsel to the House of Representatives committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The firm also represented two former Georgia election workers in a successful defamation lawsuit against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Three of the targeted firms have now made deals with the White House — resolutions that critics within the legal community call a capitulation — but others have challenged them in court and have been successful in getting key portions of the edicts blocked.
The internal email from Willkie acknowledged that ambivalence.
“While the agreement ultimately reached with the Administration focuses on activities that are already in place at our Firm, similar agreements at peer firms have been publicly criticized, and there is heightened conversation across our industry as law firms grapple with the consequences of potential Executive Orders and the impact for their clients, their employees and their businesses,” the email said.
“In making this difficult decision, we concluded, after due consideration of the implications of each possible course of action, that accepting the Administration’s final proposal was the path that best serves our clients’ needs and protects the Firm’s various stakeholders, avoiding potentially grave consequences,” it added.
Leaders of Willkie learned Sunday that they would be targeted for an executive order like the one leveled at nearly a half-dozen other major firms over the last month, the email said. The White House then “outlined a proposed alternative” consisting of three principles on which an agreement could be based.
Emhoff made it known internally that he disagreed with the deal and told firm leadership they should fight, according to a person familiar with the situation who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The firm email downplayed the scope of reforms and suggested that the firm had simply agreed to continue its longstanding practices. That includes following “the law related to our employment practices," representing clients across varied political and ideological spectrums and continuing to “represent underrepresented individuals and groups.”
The White House, by contrast, portrayed the changes in more sweeping terms, saying Willkie had affirmed “its commitment to Merit-Based Hiring, Promotion, and Retention. Accordingly, the Firm will not engage in illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.”
The Trump executive orders have threatened the security clearances of attorneys at each of the targeted firms as well as the termination of federal contracts and access by employees to federal buildings.
Last Friday, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom agreed to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services to avert an executive order, following the path of Paul Weiss, a firm that cut a deal just a week after it was targeted. The Paul Weiss chairman has said the Trump action risked destroying the firm.
In some instances, federal judges have blocked key portions of the orders having to do with federal contracts and access to federal buildings from being enforced, as has happened in lawsuits brought by WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Perkins Coie.
WilmerHale is the firm where special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Trump during his first term, worked for years before retiring. Jenner & Block previously employed Andrew Weissmann, who was a top lawyer on Mueller's team, and Perkins Coie represented Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign.
The first firm to be targeted was Covington & Burling, which has offered legal services to special counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump in his second term.
Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump waves to the media as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House, in Washington, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 10, 2025--
Homes.com, a CoStar Group leading online residential marketplace, today released a new report analyzing home prices in March (based on the data collected to date), price trends across major cities, and what the latest developments in the housing market mean for homebuyers.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250410980324/en/
According to the preliminary estimates, home prices continued to go up in March, but the rate of price increases slowed for the third consecutive month. Year-over-year, prices rose 2.2% in March, 2.7% in February, and 3.6% in January. In dollar terms, the median home price went up $8,000 from March of last year to March of this year, rising from $372,000 to $380,000. Prices have increased for 21 consecutive months, with price appreciation peaking at 5.6% in December.
In addition to the slowing price growth in recent months, there was an increase in the number of homes for sale and a small decline in mortgage rates in March. Lower mortgage rates make buying a home more affordable, and more homes for sale equates to higher leverage for homebuyers. Combined, these factors point to a slight shift away from a seller's market and towards a buyer's market.
The Northeast and Midwest continued to see the strongest price appreciation in March. Of the 10 markets with the largest price increases, four were in the Northeast, and four were in the Midwest. Cleveland led the way, with prices rising more than 10% in the past year, followed by Chicago, New York, and Pittsburgh. By contrast, the South only had one market, Austin, among the 10 cities with the largest price increases, while five Southern markets were among the bottom 10. Four markets saw price declines in March, with the state of Florida accounting for three of the four. The four markets with declines were Orlando, Jacksonville, San Francisco, and Tampa.
The data shared in this report could change slightly once all home sales are accounted for. Melina Duggal, Senior Director of Market Analytics at CoStar Group and Homes.com, is available for interviews to provide insights on these data and the residential real estate market in general. For more information and insights on the latest home buying and selling market trends, visit Homes.com.
About Homes.com
Homes.com is the fastest-growing residential real estate marketplace and the second largest portal in the United States. Homes.com is a brand of CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP), a global leader in commercial real estate information, analytics, and online marketplaces, which acquired the platform in 2021.
Homes.com is the first major U.S. real estate portal to focus first on helping homeowners and their agents leverage the marketing power of the internet to bring more potential buyers to their listings. Homes.com’s unparalleled content and search capabilities bring millions of buyers and sellers to the site where they can seamlessly connect with agents. On average, Homes.com’s Members are winning 58% more listings* because they offer the home sellers a real estate portal that works for them not against them.
The Homes.com Network reached an audience of 110 million average monthly unique visitors in the fourth quarter ending December 31, 2024.** Consumer brand awareness skyrocketed from 4% to 33% in just one year since CoStar Group launched the industry’s largest marketing campaign to date in February 2024, reintroducing the platform to the market. For more information, visit Homes.com.
* Based on internal analyses comparing Members to non-Members on Homes.com.
** Homes.com Network (which includes Homes.com, the Apartments Network, and the Land Network) average monthly unique visitors for the quarter ended December 31, 2024, according to Google Analytics.
About CoStar Group
CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP) is a global leader in commercial real estate information, analytics, online marketplaces and 3D digital twin technology. Founded in 1986, CoStar Group is dedicated to digitizing the world’s real estate, empowering all people to discover properties, insights, and connections that improve their businesses and lives.
CoStar Group’s major brands include CoStar, a leading global provider of commercial real estate data, analytics, and news; LoopNet, the most trafficked commercial real estate marketplace; Apartments.com, the leading platform for apartment rentals; and Homes.com, the fastest-growing residential real estate marketplace. CoStar Group’s industry-leading brands also include Matterport, a leading spatial data company whose platform turns buildings into data to make every space more valuable and accessible, STR, a global leader in hospitality data and benchmarking, Ten-X, an online platform for commercial real estate auctions and negotiated bids and OnTheMarket, a leading residential property portal in the United Kingdom.
CoStar Group’s websites attracted over 134 million average monthly unique visitors in the fourth quarter of 2024, serving clients around the world. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, CoStar Group is committed to transforming the real estate industry through innovative technology and comprehensive market intelligence. From time to time, we plan to utilize our corporate website as a channel of distribution for material company information. For more information, visit CoStarGroup.com.
Homes.com Select Sales Example 1 March 2025
Homes.com Select Sales Example 3 March 2025
Homes.com Select Sales Example 2 March 2025
Homes.com Year-Over-Year Increases in March Home Sale Prices Nationally
Homes.com National Median Home Prices In The Month of March
Homes.com National Year-Over-Year Change in Median Home Price 2 March 2025
Homes.com National Year-Over-Year Change in Median Home Price March 2025
Homes.com National Median Home Price March 2025
