Years before the law firm Paul Weiss struck a deal with President Trump over an executive order that threatened its business, the storied New York partnership made another fateful decision. It raided a competitor for a group of lawyers with an exceptionally profitable client, the private equity and credit firm Apollo Global Management.

Susman Godfrey accused Trump of trying to "exact revenge" on the firm, which has represented Dominion Voting Systems in defamation cases related to the president's false claims that the 2020 U.S. election was rigged.