Trump Takes Aim at Attorneys, Firms
Last week, the D.C. Circuit ordered the Trump Administration not to enforce Executive Order No. 14230, titled “Addressing Risks From Perkins Coie LLP.”1 Unfazed, Trump published “Addressing Risks From Paul Weiss,” a day later.2 The orders target Big Law firms affiliated with the President’s political adversaries—the Perkins Coie order cites the firm’s representation of Hillary Clinton as part of its “Purpose.” The Paul, Weiss order similarly cites the firm’s hiring of Robert Mueller ’73, as well as its prior employment of Mark Pomerantz, who left the firm to work on the Manhattan District Attorney’s hush money case against Trump. Both orders also claim that the firms use DEI to racially discriminate against employees, which, Trump claims, justifies barring the firms’ “access to our Nation’s secrets” and federal funds.
In substance, the orders do the following:
(1) Suspend the firms’ security clearances
(2) Cut off government services and benefits to the firms
(3) Require government contractors to disclose any business with the firms
(4) Require that agencies “take appropriate steps to terminate” contracts with the firms
(5) Require agencies to submit assessments of contracts with the firms and contractors who do business with the firms to the Office of Management and Budget
(6) Bar firm employees from federal buildings “when such access would threaten the national security of or otherwise be inconsistent with the interests of the United States”
(7) Require agencies to stop hiring firm employees
If enforced, the orders threaten to starve these firms of clients and cripple litigation against the federal government. According to ABA Journal, eight big law firms and several nonprofits and smaller firms are involved in active litigation against the Trump Administration.3 The list of all legal organizations that have taken Trump on since his first term would be longer. As the Paul, Weiss order demonstrates, the President is more than willing to vindictively target firms for their past actions.
While Perkins Coie appears to have attained a momentary reprieve—though whether the Administration will follow the court’s injunction is a real question—Paul, Weiss succumbed to the President’s pressure, announcing an agreement with the White House involving the revocation of the order in return for an “engaged and constructive relationship” with Trump. The White House announced that firm Chairman Brad Karp acknowledged wrongdoing on the part of Mark Pomerantz, and that the firm had committed to abandoning its diversity initiatives and providing the Administration with $40M worth of pro bono work. New York Times sources have stated on the record that Mr. Karp did not agree to the announcement of the firm’s abandonment of DEI initiatives.4 The precise terms of Trump’s agreement with Paul, Weiss are not public.
In addition to the actions enumerated above, the Perkins Coie order requires that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Attorney General review the hiring practices of Big Law firms across the board. The EEOC appears to be following Trump’s directive, having sent twenty letters to prominent Big Law firms.5 Recipients include Skadden, Kirkland & Ellis, Millbank, A&O Shearman, and Sidley, to name a few familiar heavy hitters.
The letters request information about the firms’ employment practices pursuant to a “review” of compliance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In her letter to Perkins Coie, EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas ’11 expresses “concern” that the firm’s DEI initiatives and other programs may violate Title VII, pointing to the firm’s Mansfield 7.0 Certification Plus status from Diversity Lab, recognition as a top performer by Microsoft’s Law Firm Diversity Program, and the firm’s affinity groups. The letter goes on to request information about the firm’s diversity fellowship programs, including selection criteria and personal identifying information for diversity fellowship applicants from 2015 through the present and SEO applicants for every year that the firm hosted SEO fellows. It also asks Perkins Coie to identify all its clients who have diversity requirements or preferences.
An EEOC press release announcing the letters invites “whistleblowers” to submit information about “potentially unlawful practices at law firms.”6 “No one is above the law,” according to Ms. Lucas, a UVA Law alumna nominated by Trump during his first term.7 Whether and how the EEOC intends to supposedly enforce the law remains in question. EEOC demand letters are not binding, so firms can ignore them. In fact, Rachel Cohen, a former associate at Skadden, resigned in part due to Skadden’s refusal to confirm that they would not comply with their letter.8 While it remains an open question which firms, if any, will comply, the EEOC’s investigative authority does include the subpoena power. These letters could be a preview of what might be subpoenaed down the line, in which case firms would have to litigate if they wanted to avoid compliance.
Trump’s executive orders read like the beginning of a hit list. As D.C. Circuit Judge Beryl Howell put it, the “retaliatory animus” of the Perkins Coie order is “clear on its face.”9 These orders, though, move far beyond retribution for specific acts or affiliations. They aim to stifle the nation’s powerful private legal operators, an oblique threat to any attorney or firm considering taking on this Administration. In a March 22 memorandum titled “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court,” Trump instructed the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to pursue sanctions against attorneys deemed to engage in “frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States.” Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 makes the presentation of a motion for an improper purpose a sanctionable offense. Should the Administration pursue sanctions as part of its thinly veiled campaign to discourage litigation against the federal government, this writer wonders whether the Administration itself would then be vulnerable to Rule 11 improper purpose sanctions. Whether or not this would be the case, Trump has proven unflappable in his mission to subjugate organizations that might stand in his path, so the threat of sanctions would quite possibly not even factor into his calculus.
Sources
1. 2025 WL 853140
2. Executive Order No. 14237
3. “Which BigLaw firms and big-name lawyers are involved in suits against Trump administration?”
4. “Law Firm Bends in the Face of Trump Demands”
5. https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2025-03/Law_Firm_Letters_-_03.17.2025.pdf
7. https://www.eeoc.gov/andrea-r-lucas-acting-chair
9. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/20/white-house-law-firm-sanctions-026866
