It is the cornerstone of American democracy, which is enshrined in the first amendment of the Constitution. People have the right to challenge the actions of leaders. Countless citizens, businesses and others have exercised their rights by filing lawsuits against the US government.
This has been happening for over 200 years. But the barrage of at least 150 lawsuits against the second Trump administration challenges many of its policy and personnel decisions, perhaps unparalleled in US history. And in dozens of cases, judges ordered the administration to suspend or reverse actions at the heart of President Trump's agenda.
Trump and his administration's lawyers are fighting in court, but they are also pursuing a much more ambitious and consequential goal. It prevents lawyers from suing his administration in the first place.
In a recent series of executive orders, Trump has limited the ability to interact with the federal government in several major law firms, including those that have hired his perceived political opponents. Among the President's statement was that some of the work the corporations did were in the way of immigration and other policies in his administration.
Trump took part in more memo this month. Alleging that many companies had filed abusive lawsuits, he directed the Attorney General to “sue sanctions against lawyers and law firms engaged in frivolous, irrational and troublesome cases against the United States.”
These adjectives are ambiguous. But the threat is clear. Huge law firms tend to have lucrative businesses that help corporate clients move on their paths with the federal government, whether they win contracts, refuse to investigate or minimize the impact of regulations. Being punished by the government is bad for businesses.
Trump's recent broadside has shocked the legal industry, with many of its practitioners taking pride in pursuing cases against the perceived duties of both Republican and Democrat administrations.
The order revealed a significant difference in how powerful law firms want to handle offensive and unpredictable presidents. Three companies have sued Trump's orders, calling them blatantly unconstitutional. (On Friday evening, a federal judge in Washington issued a temporary restraining order recognising two companies, Jenner & Block and Wilmerhale.
The other two, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, have signed contracts with the President to avoid or withdraw such orders.
Anyway, Trump's move has the potential and perhaps goal to undermine the ability of those to challenge government. “It is the president's intentional intention to cool down the nation's largest law firm from representing cases he dislikes,” said Cecilia D. Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who joined with major companies to file a lawsuit against the administration. “I think we'll see some law firms beginning to retreat.”
Deepak Gupta, founder of law firm Gupta Wesler, said he knows the top law firm lawyers who recently informed Pro Bono clients that they are no longer representing because they are scared of Trump's enforcement orders and memos.
“It already works,” Gupta said. Gupta sued the Trump administration on behalf of a union representing fired members of the National Labor Relations Commission and employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “This isn't about anything that might happen in the future.”
There is a similarity between Trump's attacks on legal industry and his campaign to constrain or undermine other pillars of civil society. Trump and his aides are suing and investigating media outlets that have generated serious coverage. And his administration is threatening to withhold a large sum of federal money from universities that do not meet his demands.
Even before Trump's orders against law firms, the legal community struggled to catch up with a mass of legally questionable actions in his administration. While many small law firms and public interest organizations have the desire and expertise to represent clients who take over the administration, they often rely on the resources of large corporations, including national military forces of associates and paralegals who can be sent immediately to support their workload.
Large companies often handle such cases for free. This means that you are generally not paid for your work. It was no coincidence that Trump “crying large companies for doing harmful activities through powerful pro bono practices. As part of his recent deal with Trump, Paul Weiss and Scaden agreed to do tens of millions of dollars of pro bono legal work for causes and clients such as veterans that Trump supports.
“The point is to intimidate people,” said Andrew G. Seri Jr., partner of Emery, Seri, Brinskerhoff, Abadi, Ward and Mazell, whose clients include prominent Democrats. When a large company steps in cold foot, “there are cases where they fall out of the crack or don't file lawsuits the right way.”
It is ironic that Republicans like Trump are trying to crack down on lawsuits against the US government. Such lawsuits are one of the most popular and powerful tools used to attack what conservatives view as enthusiastic regulations and false policies by Democrats.
For example, the lawsuit hampered the Biden administration's ability to allow billions of dollars on student loans. In the Obama administration, Republicans and their lawyers used such cases in failed efforts to discourage affordable care laws.
Trump recently lamented how “big laws” exist in Democrats' pockets. But his real grievance is that the companies he targeted in the executive order hired an attorney who worked on an investigation or legal case against him. And while some law firms are leaning left, others large companies specialize in serving Republicans.
One of the nation's biggest companies through several measures, Jones Day has built a reputation in Washington by representing Trump's 2016 campaign and then placing his first administration with lawyers. It was one of the companies leading the legal agenda for Obama and Biden's policies.
Trump has not publicly threatened Jones Day.
Many of the company's leaders are conservative, but they also embrace liberal initiatives, such as building horrifying pro bono practices to support undocumented immigrants along the border with Mexico.
That's the type of work that Trump recently attacked other major law firms.
Laura K. Twel, who is responsible for Jonesday's pro bono work and an outspoken champion in immigration support, declined to comment on whether the company is reconsidering its work in light of the Trump administration's threat to law firms.
Devlin Barrett contributed the report.
