Trump turns Big Law upside down

On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he had struck a deal with a legal organization that he had earlier accused of “harmful activity.” He withdrew an executive order against the prominent international law firm Paul, Weiss in exchange for several concessions.

Trump previously suspended active security clearances for Paul, Weiss attorneys and terminated federal contracts with the firm. The order called out the legal group for hiring an attorney who led an investigation into Trump’s finances and for bringing lawsuits against participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.

Since taking office in January, Trump has issued executive orders or memos against three law firms. Last week, his administration and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission wrote letters to another 20 law firms, requesting information on employment practices based on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

“We have a lot of law firms that we’re going to be going after because they were very dishonest people,” Trump said in a Fox News interview earlier this month.

Before Trump’s Thursday post, Paul, Weiss agreed to “take on a wide range of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints of our society,” Trump said. The group also agreed to stop using DEI-related hiring practices and to dedicate $40 million in free legal services to support U.S. veterans and measures addressing anti-Semitism.

The firm had hoped to receive support from other legal groups against Trump’s order, chairman Brad Karp said in a company-wide email Sunday. When this did not occur, Paul, Weiss brokered a deal to “ensure, above all, that our firm would survive.”

Karp told employees that “the executive order could easily have destroyed our firm. … It threatened our clients with the loss of their government contracts, and the loss of access to the government if they continued to use the firm as their lawyers.”

About a week before Trump’s executive order against Paul, Weiss, Trump issued a March 6 order against the left-leaning firm Perkins Coie. He called on officials in his administration to suspend security clearances and bar the firm’s staff from federal buildings, limiting its ability to represent clients in disputes with the federal government. Trump justified the move by saying that the group hired a firm that manufactured a false “‘dossier’ designed to steal an election” while representing then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Within days of that executive order, Perkins Coie sued Trump, alleging free speech and due process violations. The firm contended that Trump’s order seeks to “bully those who advocate points of view that the president perceives as adverse to the views of his administration.”

During the hearing, Chad Mizelle, the chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Justice, argued that the president “is authorized under the Constitution to find that there are certain individuals or certain companies that are not trustworthy with the nation’s secrets.”

A federal judge Wednesday temporarily blocked parts of Trump’s Perkins Coie order, ruling that the action was retaliatory and violated the First Amendment. “Our justice system is based on the fundamental belief that justice works best when all parties have zealous advocates,” said U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in an order issued from the bench. “That fundamental promise extends to all parties, even those with unpopular ideas or beliefs or causes disliked by President Trump.”

In February, Trump authorized suspending security clearances for the law firm Covington & Burling because of its work with former special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two federal criminal cases against the president. Covington & Burling has not responded with any court action.

Experts from a wide array of political views say that Trump’s actions could violate constitutional rights.

Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston, said some of Trump’s decisions, like removing security clearances, could have reasonable grounds if the president is concerned with safety issues.

“I think he can exercise that power based on his judgment about these firms,” Blackman said. “But more generally, it is problematic to single out law firms for their political behavior. Firms are allowed to represent only liberals or only conservatives.”

He noted that other administrations have engaged in these sorts of actions in the past, albeit more quietly. The Obama administration pressured the firm Baker Hostetler to drop its representation of a lawsuit against the then-president from the House of Representatives in 2014, Blackman said.

In the 2000s, government officials coerced firms that represented Guantanamo Bay detainees to drop the cases, said Daniel Ortner, an attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. In the 1950s, lawyers representing civil rights issues faced similar challenges, too, he said, adding that Trump’s orders mirror this “disturbing history.”

Ortner argued that the executive orders violate the First Amendment’s freedom of association by targeting law firms for representing certain clients or views.

“At the core of our system of justice is the idea of vigorous representation,” Ortner said. “If one side can’t get representation, can’t have a fair fight in the courts, it really undermines justice in our country.”

Douglas Laycock, a professor of law emeritus at the University of Virginia, added that limiting the options clients have in choosing a law firm impedes the right to due process. Even if a firm isn’t directly targeted by the White House, it might be less likely to accept certain clients for fear of retaliation, he said.

“The threats he makes are so overwhelming that no one can afford to litigate about it,” Laycock said. “The fundamental premise of our legal system is, everybody is entitled to representation. The government cannot issue an order that says ‘Don’t represent these people.’”