Lobby Giants Cash in on Trump Tax Bill as Brownstein Hits Record

Two of Washington’s top lobbying firms—Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld—had blow-out quarters in revenue thanks to Republicans’ signature tax bill.

Lobbyists generated $18.5 million for Brownstein Hyatt and $16.3 million for Akin Gump in the second quarter of 2025, federal disclosure forms showed. Those results amounted to the highest-ever quarter for Brownstein and the second highest-ever for Akin after this year’s first quarter.

The results show how the firms benefited from intense lobbying activity surrounding the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4. The firms received high payouts from Apollo Global Management Inc. and Nippon Steel Corp.

“Reconciliation bills don’t come around very often, and so a lot of legislative activity was focused there,” said Will Moschella, co-chair of the government relations department at Brownstein Hyatt. “The One Big Beautiful Bill involved numerous industries and business sectors than would a bill that was just tax policy.”

Moschella said lobbyists were negotiating late in the process for the removal of the so-called “revenge tax,” or Section 899, which would have brought levies against countries deemed as leveling taxes adverse to US interests. In exchange, US allies agreed to exclude US companies from a global minimum 15% tax.

“That was worked on up until the very end and we had some clients for whom that would have been problematic,” Moschella said. Apollo Global Management paid the firm $260,000 in the quarter for lobbying on tax issues related to the bill, federal lobbying disclosures show.

The private investment and energy industries won several concessions in the drafting process of the One Big Beautiful Bill, with Congress opting to omit changes to the tax treatment of carried interest for general partners of investment funds.

Akin Gump

Akin Gump’s results were helped by its advocacy for the preservation of the pass-through entity tax deduction, records filed pursuant to the Lobbying Disclosure Act show.

“The tax bill was a key growth driver, with clients across industries turning to the firm to navigate their most pressing and complex tax-related concerns ahead of the bill’s enactment,” G. Hunter Bates, co-head of Akin’s lobbying and public policy practice, said in a statement.

Steel manufacturer Nippon, Akin Gump’s biggest lobbying client in the second quarter, paid the firm $1.2 million for advocating for its proposed acquisition of US Steel to Congress and various executive branch agencies, according to the firm’s filing. The tie-up went into effect in June when Trump signed an executive order approving the merger after the companies signed a national security agreement.

On the other side of the negotating table in the Nippon-US Steel merger sat lobbyists at Hogan Lovells, which derived $420,000 in revenue last quarter from helping broker that merger, disclosures show. That bolstered what amounted to the highest lobbying revenue in a single quarter for the firm of $4.02 million, said Aaron Cutler, who leads the government relations and public affairs practice at Hogan Lovells.

“President Biden didn’t support that deal and initially, President Trump didn’t support the deal either,” Cutler said. “Ultimately, President Trump found a way to put his imprint on the deal and support.”

K&L Gates scored a record of its own—the most first-time lobbying clients in a single quarter. Twenty-eight clients registered as customers of the firm for the first time in the second quarter of 2025, according to the firm.

“Increasingly, you see corporations and organizations recognizing that engagement in Washington DC is important for mission-critical objectives,” said Karishma Page, a member of the K&L Gates’ public policy and law practice. “That has been a trend and is accelerating in the current environment.”

— With reporting by Kate Ackley.