About 500 law firms sign brief challenging Trump's executive orders targeting the legal community
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting the legal community pose “a grave threat to our system of constitutional governance and to the rule of law itself,” according to a court filing submitted Friday by more than 500 law firms.
The brief represents the most organized pushback to date against a series of White House executive orders that have sought to punish some of the country's most elite firms and to extract concessions from them. Some of the targeted firms have sued to halt enforcement of the orders, while others have struck deals with the White House either to avert an order or to have it rescinded.
The filing was submitted as part of a lawsuit filed by Perkins Coie, which is among the firms that have challenged the orders in court. The order against that firm and others demands that security clearances of its lawyers be suspended, that federal contracts be terminated and that employee access to federal buildings be restricted.
The firm won a court order temporarily blocking enforcement of several provisions of the executive order, but its court case is still pending.
On Friday, more than 500 firms and law offices from around the country signed onto a brief urging a judge to permanently block the order. The firms, in their filing, call the order a “grave threat to our system of constitutional governance and to the rule of law itself.”
“The looming threat posed by the Executive Order at issue in this case and the others like it is not lost on anyone practicing law in this country today: any controversial representation challenging actions of the current administration (or even causes it disfavors) now brings with it the risk of devastating retaliation,” the brief argues.
It adds: “Whatever short-term advantage an administration may gain from exercising power in this way, the rule of law cannot long endure in the climate of fear that such actions create. Our adversarial system depends upon zealous advocates litigating each side of a case with equal vigor; that is how impartial judges arrive at just, informed decisions that vindicate the rule of law.”
Last month, Paul Weiss became the first firm to cut a deal with the White House, agreeing to dedicate $40 million in pro bono legal services to causes championed by the Trump administration and to ensure merit-based hiring instead of relying on diversity, equity and inclusion considerations in its employment practices. In exchange, the White House rescinded an executive order issued days earlier.
Since then, the law firms of Millbank and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom have reached similar agreements to avoid being hit with an executive order.
Several of the targeted firms have been subject to orders, in part, because of their prior or current associations with lawyers who either investigated Trump or are among the president's perceived adversaries.
Big Law's biggest players are absent from brief opposing Trump's attacks on law firms
Donald Trump's attacks against Big Law firms have drawn three lawsuits. A few other firms settled.
504 law firms asked the courts to put a stop to it.
But from Kirkland & Ellis to Paul Hastings, the highest-earning firms in Big Law declined to join.
More than 500 law firms — including some of the country's most prominent — signed onto a legal brief Friday to oppose Donald Trump's executive orders attacking law firms that hired his political enemies.
Absent from the list, however, were America's 27 highest-grossing law firms.
From Kirkland & Ellis, which reported $8.8 billion in revenue last year and has about 3,800 lawyers, to Paul Hastings, with more than $2 billion in revenue, corporate America's legal team was largely silent.
The 27 firms that didn't sign collectively brought in over $74 billion in revenue last year.
They are: Kirkland, Latham, DLA Piper (verein), Baker McKenzie (verein), Skadden, Sidley, Gibson Dunn, Ropes & Gray, White & Case, Morgan Lewis, Hogan Lovells, Jones Day, Simpson Thacher, Greenberg Traurig, Norton Rose (verein), Goodwin Procter, King & Spalding, Quinn Emanuel, Cooley, Davis Polk, Paul Weiss, McDermott, Mayer Brown, Sullivan & Cromwell, Holland & Knight, Weil, and Paul Hastings.
"The largest law firms are extraordinarily powerful, and in this instance, that power actually cripples them. I'm disappointed that they didn't join," said Nathan Eimer, one of the lawyers who wrote the brief.
The above 27 firms did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about why they didn't sign onto the brief.
The brief was filed in support of Perkins Coie, a law firm whose attorneys Trump effectively deemed a national security threat in an executive order that barred them from federal buildings, stripped them of security clearances, and required government contractors to disclose whether they used the firm.
Several former partners at Perkins Coie represented some of Trump's political adversaries, but most of the firm's political lawyers have left.
Some big firms did sign on to the brief, as did some top class-action lawyers and trial lawyers who often represent plaintiffs suing big corporations.
The US arm of Freshfields, a UK-founded corporate law firm that last year was reported to do about 20% of its business in the United States, signed the brief. Arnold & Porter, a big DC-based firm that represented federal workers accused of being communists during the "Red Scare" of the 1950s, also included its name. Arnold & Porter was one of eight firms among the country's 100 highest-earning that signed, according to Law.com.
Other firms targeted by Trump's orders rallied behind Perkins. Covington & Burling, which gave legal advice to a prosecutor who went after Trump, as well as WilmerHale and Jenner & Block, which have sued the Trump administration over executive orders that targeted them, all put their names on the brief.
But the lack of America's largest firms was frustrating, said Eimer, who told Business Insider he didn't know whose names would be included until shortly before the legal papers were filed because the process was treated with extreme confidentiality.
"I understand, from the management side, why they feel that jeopardizing their business is their overriding concern. But in my view, at the end of the day, lawyers have an obligation to the courts," he said, "and the constitution that overrides our business interest."
Law firms, including Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Milbank, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, have cut deals with the Trump administration to collectively devote hundreds of millions of dollars worth of lawyers' time to causes that dovetail with the president's interests — like veterans' rights and fighting antisemitism.
Bloomberg reported the conservative group The Oversight Project wrote a letter to law firms asking them to donate up to $10 million of legal advice to it and other "center-right" groups to help satisfy their commitments.
The first firm to cut a deal with the Trump administration was Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, whose chairman, Brad Karp, and senior lawyers are known for being political progressives. Karp defended the agreement with the Trump administration in an email sent to the firm late last month, saying that competing law firms immediately started trying to poach Paul Weiss clients and attorneys.
"The resolution we reached with the Administration will have no effect on our work and our shared culture and values," Karp wrote.
Paul Weiss's name is not on the brief.