The phones haven’t stopped ringing. In Washington, where power dances with policy, America’s biggest lobbying firms are riding a tidal wave of cash in the early days of Donald Trump’s second presidency.
The White House is red, Congress is redder, and the K Street crowd is green with opportunity.
At powerhouse law firm Akin, the first quarter of 2025 broke records. Lobbying revenues surged to $16.4 million — up nearly 19% from the same period last year. That’s not just growth; it’s an adrenaline shot to the firm’s bottom line.
“We’ve hit a point where trade is no longer a backroom conversation — it’s now a boardroom emergency,” said one of Akin’s policy leaders, noting that Trump’s sudden swings on tariffs and global trade are pulling corporate America into full-blown defensive mode.
And that’s just the beginning.
Ballard Partners, long known for its deep ties to Trumpworld, posted a jaw-dropping 225% revenue jump, pulling in $14 million in Q1. That’s not a typo — it’s a reflection of how access now equals influence. The firm’s roster reads like a Trump administration alumni club, with former insiders and fundraisers greasing the wheels of power.
Major law firms aren’t just watching from the sidelines — they’re writing checks. Kirkland & Ellis and Simpson Thacher shelled out $100,000 each to Ballard to handle employment-related lobbying work, filings show. That’s part of a broader pattern: top firms making quiet pacts with the White House to keep their operations clear of sweeping executive orders.
Meanwhile, the elite of higher education are lawyering up. Harvard, locked in a fierce legal showdown over frozen federal funds, tapped Ballard to defend the university’s interests. At issue: Trump’s war on what he calls campus antisemitism and his crackdown on last year’s pro-Palestinian protests. Other academic heavyweights like the University of Colorado and DePaul University have turned to Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, which reported $16.8 million in lobbying revenue for Q1 — a modest bump, but significant in context.
“Colleges are caught in the crosshairs,” said a senior figure at Brownstein. “This administration’s executive orders are coming fast, and the stakes are sky-high.”
More firms are cashing in:
- BGR Group clocked $14.6 million
- Cornerstone Government Affairs pulled $13.6 million
- Holland & Knight took in $13 million, up 5.4% from last year
All of this is part of a bigger picture — one where lobbying has ballooned into a billion-dollar behemoth. In 2024 alone, spending on influence in Washington topped $4.43 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
And the floodgates may not be closing anytime soon. With Trump reshaping everything from trade policy to campus speech, corporate America and higher ed are racing to keep up — and they’re doing it with the one thing Washington always answers to: cash.
