When some of the nation’s biggest law firms agreed to deals with President Donald Trump, the terms appeared straightforward: In return for escaping the full force of his retribution campaign, the firms would do some free legal work on behalf of largely uncontroversial causes like helping veterans.

Trump, it turns out, has a far more expansive view of what those firms can be called on to do.

Over the past week, he has suggested that the firms will be drafted into helping him negotiate trade deals. He also has mused about having them help with his goal of reviving the coal industry.

And he has hinted that he sees the promises of nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services that he has extracted from the elite law firms — including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher — as a legal war chest to be used as he wishes.

“Have you noticed that lots of law firms have been signing up with Trump: $100 million, another $100 million for damages that they’ve done,” Trump said at an event last week with coal miners, without specifying what he meant by damages.

None of the firms have acknowledged any wrongdoing. They were targeted with punitive executive orders or implicit threats for representing or aiding Trump’s political foes or employing people he sees as having used the legal system to come after him.

The deals have been widely criticized, seen by many in the legal community as unconstitutional and undemocratic. Four firms that Trump leveled executive orders against have fought them in court, all quickly receiving rulings from federal judges who temporarily halted them.

But now that nine firms have agreed to deals and committed to nearly $1 billion worth of pro bono legal work, some Trump advisers have started having discussions about a range of options for what the firms’ lawyers can be deployed to work on, according to two people briefed on the matter. That work could include sending the lawyers to help Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or deploying them to aid the Justice Department.

White House officials believe that some of the pro bono work could even be used toward representing Trump or his allies if they became ensnared in investigations, according to the two people.

Asked about what Trump would seek from the firms, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the firms had “committed to hundreds of millions in pro bono work and other free legal services” that should be put to the “best uses” for the American people.

The agreements, which Trump announced on his social media site, appear to leave room for interpretation. It is unclear whether the firms even signed formal written deals spelling out the terms, or if they were essentially handshake agreements.

It is also not clear how hard and how far Trump will push the notion that those deals now leave many of the nation’s biggest, most prestigious and best-resourced firms at his beck and call. There is no indication yet that he has sought to deploy any of them on a particular issue.

But the emerging gap between what the firms initially thought they agreed to and what Trump says they can be used for shows how the deals did little to insulate them from his whims. Further demands on the firms from Trump could raise the potential for conflicts with paying clients and could further fuel internal dissension.

All nine firms that reached deals with Trump declined to comment or did not respond. The other firms that made deals are Latham & Watkins; Milbank; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; A&O Shearman; Kirkland & Ellis; and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

One lawyer directly involved in some of the agreements said he feared that Trump’s comments could lead to the deals unraveling.

Leaders of some of the firms have seen Trump’s comments in recent days and are just hoping that Trump will not follow through and press them to take on work on behalf of the administration, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Although judges have temporarily barred orders issued by Trump against four firms from going into effect, raising doubts about their constitutionality, corporate lawyers at Paul Weiss were so fearful of simply appearing at odds with the administration that they pushed the firm to settle instead of file a lawsuit.

If the firms that made deals rebuffed new demands from Trump, that would force the president to decide whether he believed that the firms were in violation of the agreement and whether to level new executive orders against them.

Trump was first to announce all of the arrangements on his terms. The firms said little publicly and communicated only over internal firm emails what their thinking about the terms of the agreement had been.

The uncertainty over the existence of formal contracts has left unclear what, if any, enforcement mechanisms there might be.

Two people said Brad Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss, was very clear with the firm’s top leadership that his agreement with Trump was essentially a codification of work that Paul Weiss already does, a message echoed by leaders of other firms about their agreements.

Karp did suggest to the White House, according to two people briefed on the matter, that Paul Weiss do work for a potential U.S. sovereign wealth fund.

In internal communications with their employees, several of the settling firms said the pro bono commitments they agreed to are consistent with free legal services they already provide.

As these law firms navigate the shifting terms of their agreements with Trump, they are also contending with criticism from within.

Much of the loudest disapproval has come from some of the associates, typically younger lawyers who do not have any sway in the firm’s decision-making but often do the bulk of the essential work. A few quit their jobs within days of the deals being announced at Skadden, Paul Weiss, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Latham & Watkins, and Kirkland, posting resignations on LinkedIn.

And if the administration seeks to require any of the firms to do work for the Justice Department, those that have cases before the department could lose clients that are under federal investigation.