In Donald J. Trump’s quest for retribution against Big Law, nine firms immediately caved and struck deals with the co-president, collectively promising $940 million in pro bono work. However, four firms didn’t bow down to Donald: Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey. Perkins Coil, which represented Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, prevailed in court in their lawsuit against the federal government.
Via the Associated Press:
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said the executive order against the firm of Perkins Coie amounted to “unconstitutional retaliation” as she ordered that it be nullified and that the Trump administration halt any enforcement of it.
“No American President,” Howell wrote in her 102-page order, “has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’”
The ruling was [the] most definitive rejection to date of Trump’s spate of similarly worded executive orders against some of the country’s most elite law firms, part of a broader effort by the president to reshape American civil society by targeting perceived adversaries in hopes of extracting concessions from them and bending them to his will. Several of the firms singled out for sanction have either done legal work that Trump has opposed, or currently have or previously had associations with prosecutors who at one point investigated the president.
Oh, is this all he wanted? Sounds legit!
The edicts have ordered that the security clearances of attorneys at the targeted firms be suspended, that federal contracts be terminated and that their employees be barred from federal buildings. The punished law firms have called the executive orders an affront to the legal system and at odds with the foundational principle that lawyers should be free to represent whomever they’d like without fear of government reprisal.
Good for the firms that didn’t cave to the co-President. On the ones that did, the judge called them out, too.
Howell drips with disdain for the firms who capitulated to the White House and says of those who resisted “will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written.” https://t.co/oj4sysrkNd pic.twitter.com/1AOEkdvH8C
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 2, 2025
Today, the Court permanently blocked the unlawful Executive Order targeting our firm. This ruling affirms core constitutional freedoms all Americans hold dear, including free speech, due process, and the right to select counsel without the fear of retribution.
We are pleased… pic.twitter.com/KvdjS5ItXv
— Perkins Coie (@PerkinsCoieLLP) May 2, 2025
Judge hands Trump Admin a big loss in court, writing:
“Those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written”https://t.co/g6BuQC5H5y
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) May 3, 2025