The brief, just filed yesterday in district court is here; I was pleased to be one of the very many signers. Here's the Summary of Argument:
The President's Order is a self-declared act of retribution that targets a law firm for representing clients and causes the President disfavors. In inflicting this retribution, the Order contradicts centuries of precedent safeguarding free speech, the right of association, and the right to petition. These precedents establish that the First Amendment "prohibits government officials from 'relying on the threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion … to achieve the suppression' of disfavored speech." Nat'l Rifle Ass'n v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 176 (2024) (quoting Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58, 67 (1963)). Targeting Perkins Coie for representing clients and espousing views the President dislikes is viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple.
The Order violates the Fifth and Sixth Amendments as well. The Fifth and Sixth Amendments were designed to check executive power and to ensure a meaningful way to assert rights before a judicial authority. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 61, 64–65 (1932). Forcing lawyers to bend to the preferences of federal officials robs clients of their right to counsel and introduces the very type of government interference in the administration of justice the Founders acted to prevent.
Finally, the Order threatens the rule of law. If the Order stands, it will be open season on lawyers who have dared to take on clients or causes the President or other officials don't like. This is no hypothetical threat. In the run-up to the election, the President posted on Truth Social that "WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law …. Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers …." Trump Threatens Long Prison Sentences for Those Who 'Cheat' in the Election if He Wins, PBS News (Sept. 8, 2024). More recently, the President has pledged that Perkins Coie is merely among the first of "a lot of law firms that we're going to be going after." Erin Mulvaney & C. Ryan Barber, Fear of Trump Has Elite Law Firms in Retreat, Wall St. J. (Mar. 9, 2025) (quoting President Trump).
Indeed, since the Order at issue here, the President has issued three more Executive Orders targeting Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Jenner & Block; and WilmerHale, all leading law firms. See Exec. Order No. 14237, 90 Fed. Reg. 13,039 (Mar. 14, 2025) (targeting Paul Weiss); Exec. Order No. 14246, 90 Fed. Reg. 13,997 (Mar. 25, 2025) (targeting Jenner & Block); Exec. Order, Addressing Risks from WilmerHale (Mar. 27, 2025). And, one of those firms caved to the President's pressure, donating what the President described as "$40 million in pro bono legal services over the course of President Trump's term to support the Administration's initiatives" in exchange for the Order's revocation. Ali Abbas Ahmadi, Trump Rescinds Order Targeting Law Firm After It Makes $40m Promise, BBC (Mar. 21, 2025) (quoting the President's Truth Social post); see also Exec. Order No. 14244, 90 Fed. Reg. 13,685 (Mar. 21, 2025) (revoking Executive Order targeting Paul Weiss).
The impact of the Order reverberates far beyond the particular firm that is targeted. Going forward, a lawyer or law firm that is asked to represent a client on a matter that is likely to trigger the President's ire will have to weigh whether they are willing to be placed on the President's target list—and lose the business such a placement entails. They must also ask whether taking on a client of this sort, and whether zealously advocating on that client's behalf, will hurt other existing clients to whom ethical duties are owed. The Executive branch has no constitutional authority to use executive orders as a cudgel to beat the American legal system into submission.
Beyond the impact on clients and lawyers, orders of this type threaten the integrity of the judicial process, including the core role of judicial review. That anchor of our constitutional system cannot function when one person—regardless of his position—is empowered to threaten and punish lawyers for zealously representing their clients in court. "The Government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men." Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 163 (1803). Let it not "cease to deserve this high appellation." Id.
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