The Department of Justice has sued 21 states and the District of Columbia for access to their complete voter files. If successful, the Trump administration would gain access to a trove of private data that it could weaponize against voters in future elections.

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January 4, 2026

The Department of Justice has sued 21 states and the District of Columbia for access to their complete voter files. If successful, the Trump administration would gain access to a trove of private data that it could weaponize against voters in future elections.

In the past, voter suppression and election subversion efforts like these would have been met with a flurry of legal actions by the nation’s largest law firms. This time, there has been complete silence.

My small law firm of 60 lawyers has intervened in all 22 cases to fight the Trump administration. Not a single large law firm is by our side in any of them.

You count on Marc Elias for honest, straightforward insights in the fight for voting rights. Staying informed is essential to fighting for the future of our democracy.

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Big Law’s capitulation is made worse by the fact that it was not always this way. In 2017, Donald Trump set up a presidential commission to investigate voter fraud. Unsurprisingly, it sought voluntary access to states’ public voter files.

States that complied faced a barrage of lawsuits — many of which were supported by some of the nation’s largest law firms. In part due to this concerted pushback, Trump disbanded the commission and the privacy of voter data was protected.

Big Law isn't just sitting out the fight against DOJ lawsuits. They have virtually disappeared from the fight for voting rights and free and fair elections altogether.

My firm is currently litigating 78 voting and election cases in 39 states. Meanwhile, I can count on one hand the number of large law firms involved in these cases.

When Republican legislatures enacted stringent voter suppression laws in 2021, large law firms competed to be seen as the most aggressive defenders of democracy. At the time, NBC News breathlessly reported: “More than a dozen of the country's top law firms have committed to join forces to challenge voting restrictions across the country.”

The story cited Brad Karp, chairman of Paul Weiss, as the leader of a group filing sixteen lawsuits that would — according to him — act as “SWAT teams” against anti-voting laws. Yes, that’s the same Brad Karp who led Paul Weiss into capitulation with Donald Trump.Good to know he was just cosplaying as a defender of democracy.

It will not surprise you to learn that the SWAT teams never materialized. Most of the hard-nosed litigation against GOP voter suppression was carried out by nonprofit organizations like the ACLU and small law firms like mine.

There were some exceptions. Big Law piled into a handful of high-profile cases challenging laws that received the most national media attention. And nonprofits were able to secure support from some large law firms on a pro bono basis for meaningful cases.

That landscape has now changed. Those firms continued litigating cases they filed before January 2025, but otherwise, they have largely walked off the playing field.

In the few cases where they remain involved, large firms no longer promote this work as they once did. Their websites and marketing materials used to overflow with pride in their defense of democracy. Press releases accompanied every significant filing or victory.

I am not referring only to the handful of firms directly targeted by Trump. The cowardice runs much deeper — and so do the consequences.

Much attention has been paid to the hundreds of millions of dollars Big Law has pledged to causes championed by Trump. Far less attention has been given to the incalculable amount of pro bono legal work that is no longer available to groups challenging the Trump administration or GOP-controlled states.

We are already feeling Big Law’s absence from the fight for democracy. It has forced nonprofit organizations to hire more in-house lawyers than would otherwise be necessary. Smaller firms like mine are taking on more cases and more work than ever before. Tragically, it has almost certainly left some violations of the law and the Constitution unchallenged.

I often write about the need for independent media to grow so that we are no longer dependent on corporate-owned legacy outlets. The same is true in the legal field.

For years, large law firms were happy to provide free legal services in exchange for basking in the glow of organizations doing the hard work of voting rights and civil rights advocacy. Firm leaders collected awards and were feted at dinners in exchange for millions of dollars in pro bono work.

That implicit bargain between Big Law and civil society has now collapsed. Too many top lawyers would rather collect tens of millions of dollars from corporations seeking favor with the Trump administration than protect the right to vote or combat discrimination.

The pro-democracy community must adapt to this new reality. We have learned that corporate leaders are not reliable allies and that large law firms will sacrifice their reputations in pursuit of additional revenue. We should never again entrust them with the responsibility of protecting the future of democracy.

Instead, as with the media, we must build up smaller, more reliable law firm partners for the fights ahead. We must champion non-profit and for-profit law firms that are centered on serving the public good, not the highest bidder.

This will not be easy. Large firms possess significant advantages in resources and scale. But over time, they can be replaced. The result will be a stronger pro-democracy movement, prepared to take on the battles to come.

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