To avoid retribution, big firms agreed to provide free legal services for uncontroversial causes. To the White House, that could mean negotiating trade deals — or even defending the president and his allies.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked most of Donald Trump's executive order targeting law firm Susman Godfrey, part of the Republican U.S. president's campaign against the legal industry, and lamented that other firms have been "capitulating" to what she called his coercion and abuse of power.