Derek Muller’s research on political giving at the nation’s largest law firms, which I covered last fall, has been making its way around social media again. That is fitting as we approach the midterm elections. People taking measure of our current political landscape are struck by just how lopsided the numbers are. It’s hard to find even one elite, prestigious firm where a meaningful share of donors lean Republican.
The firms in Muller’s dataset are the AmLaw 100 and 50 leading plaintiffs’ shops and their employees’ contributions to presidential candidates, major party organizations, and top campaign aggregators during the 2024 election cycle. The numbers really are stark. Start with the AmLaw 100, the firms that advise some of the country’s largest corporations. Not a single one of them gave a majority of its money to Republicans, and only six firms cleared even 25% Republican giving—down sharply from 2017–2020, when more than twenty firms cleared that mark and three actually leaned Republican overall. None do now. Sullivan & Cromwell employees, which had the highest Republican raw dollar total, still gave 78% of their donations to Democrats. Most of the top plaintiffs’ firms are even more ideologically monolithic, with 100% Democratic giving by employees the norm.
As I have noted before, such numbers are a wake-up call for corporations that rely on America’s largest firms for sound and balanced advice. Our broader society should note that the same firms writing enormous checks for one side of the aisle are also shaping litigation strategy, advising on DEI and ESG exposure, and lending their names and vast resources to the political fights that may well be absorbed into the next Congress. Keep those factors in mind when pondering what is at stake in the upcoming congressional elections.