From Harvard to Musk, law firm Quinn Emanuel juggles Trump's friends and foes

Harvard University has turned to Elon Musk's longtime law firm, Quinn Emanuel, and a pair of Washington insiders with strong Republican credentials for its multibillion-dollar fight with the Trump administration over research funding.

In a letter on Monday, Harvard rejected White House demands to overhaul its curriculum. It was signed by lawyers William Burck of Quinn Emanuel and Robert Hur of rival firm King & Spalding. Both have connections to President Donald Trump or his allies.

Burck and Hur said Harvard "will not surrender its independence" in the administration's crackdown on schools that the White House says allowed antisemitism to flourish during pro-Palestinian protests over the past 18 months.

Harvard is a new client for 1,000-lawyer Quinn Emanuel, according to a person with knowledge of the firm's work for the university, and the assignment again places the firm on one side or the other of a highly contentious Trump-era legal clash.

"Where our clients need us to be on Trump’s side, we are going to be on Trump’s side. Where our clients need to be opposed to Trump, we will be against him,” the person said.

Quinn Emanuel has long represented Tesla CEO Musk, who donated $250 million to Trump's campaign, boosted Trump's candidacy on his social media platform X, and is heading the president's efforts to slash the size of the federal government.

The firm is separately representing Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is challenging his deportation to El Salvador in a lawsuit against Trump's administration that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

A judge in Washington on Tuesday warned the Trump administration against "gamesmanship" and said U.S. officials must provide documents and answer questions under oath about any efforts to secure Abrego Garcia's return.

Quinn Emanuel, whose top partners charge as much as $3,000 an hour, is representing Abrego Garcia for free, according to the person familiar with the firm's work, but is charging Harvard.

Quinn Emanuel declined to comment. Harvard, King & Spalding and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

On Wednesday, Trump in a post on his Truth Social platform said "Harvard is a JOKE" and should "no longer be considered even a decent place of learning."

Burck, a former White House lawyer for Republican President George W. Bush, was hired by the Trump Organization in January to advise the company on ethics issues.

He has also represented Steve Bannon and other Trump allies, and last month helped to facilitate an agreement between Trump and the leader of law firm Paul Weiss, who reached a deal to rescind an executive order against the firm.

Trump has issued orders against six different law firms over their ties to his legal and political opponents. Quinn Emanuel and King & Spalding have not been hit with an order so far.

King & Spalding's Hur also has ties to Trump, who nominated him in 2017 to serve as Maryland's U.S. attorney.

Hur was named U.S. special counsel in 2023 to investigate Democratic President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents. In a report last year, Hur declined to pursue charges against Biden for knowingly taking classified documents when he left the vice presidency in 2017.

Companies and other institutions may benefit from choosing lawyers that can be "everywhere at once" and cross ideological lines without compromising their ethical obligations, said Kevin Burke, who led a large firm and now teaches at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law.

"Client selection isn’t political — its practical," said Burke. A firm like Quinn Emanuel is "brought in to win."