April 1st, 2025
In the strongest terms possible, Disability Law United condemns the recent Executive Orders directed at law firms, attorneys and the practice of law in the United States. It has long been a basic fact of American life that everyone is entitled to adequate legal representation. An impartial legal system is the bedrock of our democracy. The President doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.
Now, we face a reality in which lawyers are unable to take cases because of who they represent – and whether the current administration approves of their clients.
Since his inauguration on January 20th, the President has signed five Executive Orders aimed specifically at punishing several major law firms and harming their business. The orders revoke security clearances and access to government buildings, cancel government contracts, instruct other government contractors to disclose contracts with these firms, and take aim at diversity programs and practices, as well as individual attorneys.
Their crimes? Representing people or causes Trump doesn’t like.
The Trump administration is obviously and clearly going after perceived opponents, given the list of named targets:
- Targeted firm Perkins Coie, who represented the Democratic Party on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign, investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
- Targeted firm WilmerHale, who for several years employed attorney and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller led the investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties with Russia.
- Targeted firm Jenner & Block, and specifically Andrew Weissmann, a deputy to Mueller and a top prosecutor in the Russia investigation, who was for several years employed by the firm.
- Targeted firm Covington & Burley, and specifically partner Peter Koski, who represented former Special Counsel Jack Smith in a personal, individual capacity. While employed as Special Counsel, Smith was responsible for bringing two criminal cases against Trump.
- Targeted firm Paul, Weiss, and specifically former partner Mark Pomerantz, who investigated Trump for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 2021. The firm has since given in to pressure from the administration, acknowledging Pomerantz’s so-called “wrongdoing” and agreeing to dedicate $40 million in pro bono legal services to causes supported and proposed by the Trump administration. As an apparent reward, Trump rescinded the Executive Order targeting Paul, Weiss.
In more than one of these Executive Orders, the administration also points to firms’ internal diversity efforts as evidence they were working against American interests, and claiming that their DEI policies “back[ed] the obstruction of efforts” against illegal immigrants and drug trafficking.
Disability Law United believes all of this, in combination with recent Supreme Court rulings that make it more difficult and costly for attorneys to represent injured people in civil rights cases, constitutes an attack on Americans’ rights and the U.S. justice system itself.
These orders represent a clear vendetta not just against specific attorneys and firms, but against the rule of law and our judicial system. It’s impossible to overstate the chilling effect these targeted attacks will have on every American’s right to legal counsel.
We believe these orders are unconstitutional. Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits passing laws against a single person or group, in order to prevent those who have the power to make laws from using that power for personal vendettas.
It is an abuse of the Office of the President to issue an order targeting one individual or group; if a single person or group is behaving in a harmful way, the U.S. court system exists to hear these claims, hold them accountable, or pass laws to prohibit this conduct and enforce them accordingly. Punishing individuals or parties is not, and has never been, the role of the Executive branch. Donald Trump and his administration have no authority to directly target these firms and attorneys, and this attempt to bully political opponents and punish perceived enemies must be stopped.
As civil rights lawyers, we are on the front lines of this attack on our courts. DLU stands with Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, and Jenner & Block in their courageous battle against the unconstitutional and unconscionable attack on our profession, as defenders of our precious American democracy.
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