When I was in law school at Georgetown, I worked part of that time as a Legislative Law Clerk at Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan’s Washington office. On Constitution Day (Sept. 17) one year, the senior partners called everyone to their main conference for a toast to the document that made their profession possible as guardians of the liberties it granted.
On February 25, 2025, President Donald Trump issued the first of several Executive Orders and memoranda targeting law firms and individual lawyers affiliated with his political opponents or his various prosecutions by suspending security clearances, terminating any engagement, limiting access to federal buildings, requiring government contractors to disclose any business relationship with the firm and directing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate whether a firm’s diversity initiatives violate the Civil Rights Act. In announcing each order, it was evident that the sole purpose of each order was to punish firms and individuals Trump perceived as enemies.
While some law firms have entered into dubious agreements with the administration to avoid any sanction, the law firms of Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey have fought back by challenging the constitutionality of the orders in federal court as exceeding the President’s authority and violating the First (freedom of speech), Fifth (due process), Sixth (right to counsel) and Fourteenth (equal protection) Amendments. Each of the firms won a preliminary injunction barring any action by the Trump administration while the case was pending. In the most recent case, Judge Loren L. Ali Khan called the retaliatory order “a shocking abuse of power”, while Judge Beryl Howell found that the order against Perkins Coie as casting
a chilling harm of . . . of blizzard proportions across the entire legal profession. If not enjoined or restrained, the executive order will be understood by lawyers and law firms as an extreme dangerous and unprecedented effort to intimidate them and prevent them from representing clients whom the President does not wish to have access to legal counsel or to the courts or whose advocacy the President wishes to punish.
The litigating firms are now moving for summary judgment in order to obtain a permanent injunction and the Internet Law Center has signed on to an amicus brief by 807 law firms in support of Jenner & Block’s summary judgment motion. As the son of a World War II veteran who flew 27 missions over Nazi Germany and who served 29 years as a public defender, I learned early on that our judicial process depends upon access to counsel and lawyers not being afraid to take on unpopular causes. I also learned about the dangers of what can happen when the rule of law is replaced by a rule of one man and the need to stand up and fight against such tyranny. That is why I am proud to stand up and be part of such an effort, as eloquently stated in the brief’s closing paragraph.
Like every lawyer, the members of the amicus law firms have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and to discharge the obligations of the profession to the best of our ability. That oath obligates all of us, no matter our political views, to be faithful custodians of our Nation’s commitment to the rule of law—a commitment that has made it possible for this Nation’s corporations to lead the world in innovation and productivity; for our scientists, scholars and creative artists to contribute so much to human progress; and for all of us to know that we can turn to the courts to vindicate our fundamental civil rights. We therefore feel a special responsibility to stand up now to the unprecedented threat posed by the Executive Order at issue in this case and the others like it.
A copy of the brief is below.