Trump v. Big Law: A Case of Retribution and Resignation
Amidst the slew of executive orders and judicial decisions that have characterized recent political news, a major legal development has gone largely unnoticed by the public. Several of the nation’s premier law firms have come under fire from President Trump, as he appears to be retaliating against firms that have opposed him or his supporters. For instance, he recently signed an executive order suspending security clearances for employees at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and preventing them from securing or profiting from government contracts. Many members of the legal community are concerned about the unconstitutionality of Trump’s actions as well as the precedent they set for legal practice and defense all over the nation.
Paul Weiss employs over 1,200 attorneys and counsels for major Wall Street negotiations, setting it apart as one of the nation’s top law firms. Trump is ostensibly targeting the firm due to its past association with Mark F. Pomerantz, an attorney he previously mentioned in a tirade in which he characterized prosecutors and other attorneys involved in litigation against him as “really bad people.” For context, Pomerantz opposed Trump alongside Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in Trump’s New York hush money case, which concluded with the president’s conviction on thirty four felony counts.
Trump’s executive order justifies the sanctions upon Paul Weiss as ceasing “government sponsorship of harmful activity,” citing the firm’s pro bono work in a case against January 6th insurrectionists and its DEI policies. Trump singled Pomerantz out in his executive order, calling him an “unethical attorney.”According to a spokeswoman from Paul Weiss, the executive order is primarily targeted at Pomerantz, though he has not worked for the firm in years. It should also be noted that attorneys from Paul Weiss aided families separated by Trump’s immigration policies during his first term—though, like most top law firms, they have stayed out of the limelight this time around.
Paul Weiss is far from the only victim of Trump’s executive orders— other firms impacted include Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling. He is likely targeting Perkins Coie due to the firm’s association with major Democratic donor George Soros, his 2016 presidential opponent Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee. In the same vein, Covington & Burling provided free legal advice to former special counsel Jack Smith. Perkins Coie has since lost clients, already facing the consequences of Trump’s order. According to Perkins Coie’s attorney Dane Butswinka, “It will spell the end of the law firm.” Attempts at public solidarity amongst prominent firms have been tempered by the fear of presidential retribution.
Trump has not gone completely unchecked. For instance, twenty state attorneys have banded together to file a brief in support of Perkins Coie, demonstrating widespread concern in the legal community. Additionally, he signed his executive order against Paul Weiss days after a U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee, blocked Trump’s order against Perkins Coie, declaring it unconstitutional and motivated by “retaliatory animus” at odds with “First Amendment protections.” Judge Howell found that the president targeting his political opponents in this manner violated the protections and right to representation fundamental to the American legal system. She also noted potential ramifications for the entire legal industry, as many firms would likely hesitate to represent the president’s adversaries moving forward.
The Trump administration responded by requesting that Judge Howell recuse herself from the case due to an alleged “pattern of hostility” towards the president, citing her past anti-Trump rulings, as well as her statements concerning prosecution of January 6th rioters. Lawyers from the Department of Justice have commented that her objectivity might “reasonably be questioned” as “the Court has not kept its disdain for President Trump secret…It has voiced its thoughts loudly—both inside and outside the courtroom.” For instance, Howell criticized Trump's pardons of January 6th rioters as contributing to a “revisionist myth” regarding what occurred at the U.S. capital and glorifying “poor losers” unhappy with the results of the 2020 presidential election. The Trump administration also called to attention a past ruling in which Howell required a former Trump attorney to testify in front of a grand jury during the special counsel investigation into Trump’s refusal to return classified documents, which was eventually dismissed.
In the meantime, after a meeting between Paul Weiss Chairman Brad Karp and President Trump, the firm has reached an agreement with the Trump administration. In exchange for the president dropping his executive order targeting the firm, the firm agreed to represent clients regardless of their political affiliation and to donate $40 million in unpaid legal work to “the President’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and other mutually agreed projects.” The firm’s hiring practices will also be vetted in order to ensure that it “will not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies.” According to the New York Times, members of the legal community found it surprising that Paul Weiss, a largely Democratic firm characterized by its leading role in civil rights law and diverse employment, would so easily surrender to an executive order unlikely to stand up in court.
President Trump’s attempts to disrupt the legal system have affected both attorneys and judges— those who make cases, and those who decide them. He has demonstrated that he is willing to use his increasingly expansive presidential authority to punish those who oppose him in court, firing federal prosecutors involved in his classified documents case and the investigation into his role in the January 6th insurrection. Ultimately, these were “career civil servants” with no control over the cases they were assigned. Former officials from the Department of Justice and other legal experts worry that prosecutors will fail to properly investigate public officials moving forward for fear of retaliation.This poses a significant threat to governmental accountability and ethics. According to former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, “Firing prosecutors because of cases they were assigned to work on is just unacceptable…It’s anti-rule of law; it’s anti-democracy.”
Trump has also called for the impeachment of judges who oppose his orders. For instance, he called D.C. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama,” indicating that he “...like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” Boasberg blocked Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members. Just as he has sought retribution against firms associated with his prosecution, or his perceived political adversaries, he has butted heads with judges on controversial actions ranging from his federal funding freeze to his attempt to end birthright citizenship.
His disruption of the legal system has permeated both the private and public sectors. While all eyes are on the Supreme Court to check Trump’s potential abuse of presidential power, the role of private firms is critical. According to Austin Sarat, who serves as the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, “[Paul Weiss’s] capitulation is a blow to the forces seeking to resist the destruction of America’s constitutional order…Going after large law firms is the Trump administration’s way of showing that no one is safe.” He worries that “by backing down, Paul Weiss feeds the beast and encourages more of the kind of bullying that the White House has used against it.”
Sarat is not alone in his concerns. Rachel Cohen, an attorney who resigned from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom hours after Trump’s order against Paul Weiss, shared her letter of resignation on LinkedIn, garnering over 1,145 reposts. In the letter, she declared that “If being on this career path demands I accept that my industry—because this is certainly not unique to Skadden—will allow an authoritarian government to ignore the courts, I refuse to take it any further. As I have said before, others stand to lose far, far more than a paycheck.” Other attorneys are responding with a sort of damage control: major law firms including Paul Weiss, WilmerHale, Cooley, and Davis Polk & Wardwell have removed references to their attorneys’ work on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Like Sarat, former Justice Department Pardons Attorney Liz Oyer found this move to be a form of “appeasement,” and would have preferred that firms stand up for their right to defend clients Trump sees as enemies.
Although Trump has emphasized his commitment to end the “weaponization” of the Department of Justice, his attacks on major law firms indicate his willingness to weaponize his own presidential authority to seek retribution for past prosecution or political contests. His removal of civil servants from the Justice Department is concerning because it makes prosecutors more likely moving forward to turn a blind eye to corruption, overreach, and other misconduct by public officials in order to keep their jobs.
After the White House sent a memo to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem instructing them to penalize attorneys and law firms pursuing “unreasonable” or “frivolous” litigation against the federal government, a coalition of twenty two civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Defense Fund, and Common Cause, responded. The coalition issued a joint statement “[calling] on the judiciary, bar associations, law firms, and individual lawyers to speak out against this dangerous assault on the legal profession and the rule of law…defending and facilitating the lawful and ethical practice of law, and …ready to scrutinize and hold the government accountable for its own unethical and unlawful conduct in pursuit of this administration’s aims.”
The commitments made by these civil rights organizations pose a stark contrast to the agreement brokered by Paul Weiss, which has received no end of criticism within the legal community. Cohen, who wrote the viral Skadden resignation letter, “We are in this moment where the president is testing what he can get away with and whether the structures that we have in this country that are supposed to prevent us from having a dictator will hold….We are not the first or the biggest line of defense. The big law firms are not going to save us, but we are a brick in a wall…”. George Conway, a prominent attorney with a contentious history with Trump, called big law firms prioritizing their economic interests over the preservation of democratic norms and the integrity of the legal profession “morally appalling” and “self-defeating.” Other attorneys justified Karp’s decision and the choice of other law firms and attorneys to stay silent, arguing that private firms are not responsible for national welfare or that attorneys are worried about losing connections or facing retribution from the White House.
Some attorneys view Trump’s attacks on lawyers as a means to attaining authoritarian control, while others view it as a much-needed clean-up of the profession. While some firms and legal organizations are cooperating with the administration’s demands, others are disinclined to accept what they view as an unwelcome overhaul of the American legal system and existing precedent for the relationship between private firms and the president. Only time can tell how exactly the ongoing conflicts between Trump and the lawyers or firms who have opposed him will play out—however, it is immediately apparent that his executive orders will shape the legal landscape, privately and publicly, for years to come.
Aditi Bhattacharjya is a first-year studying International and Public Affairs and Economics at Brown University. She is a staff writer for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be reached at aditi_bhattacharjya@brown.edu.
Ashley Park is a first-year studying Political Science and International and Public Affairs at Brown University. She is an editor for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be reached at ashley_h_park@brown.edu.