US presidency: Trump administration maintains ‘chilling effect’ with defence of executive orders targeting law firms
The E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse, home to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Tada Images/Adobe Stock
A case pitting four elite US law firms against the White House will be heard by an appeals court in May, after the Justice Department (DoJ) reversed its decision not to pursue the matter further. It’s the latest development in what critics say is an attempt by the Trump administration to undermine the independence of the legal profession – and to maintain a ‘chilling effect’ over the sector.
The case centres on executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in spring 2025, accusing the four firms of having engaged in discriminatory hiring practices and of ‘weaponising’ the US legal system against Trump and his allies. The DoJ declared in March that it would drop its defence of the orders after they were struck down by federal district courts during 2025, before quickly changing course.
The firms targeted – Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Susman Godfrey and Jenner & Block – have represented political adversaries of President Trump or causes he opposes. The orders revoked the security clearances held by the firms, instructed agencies to end any federal contracts held with them or their clients, and suspended access by employees to government buildings.
Faced with the prospect of similarly punishing executive orders, a number of other law firms opted in early 2025 to strike deals with the government, committing them to refrain from engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion practices and to provide pro bono legal services to causes favoured by the President.
Through a series of summary judgment rulings, each executive order was blocked at federal district court level. An ideological mix of judges each saw in the executive orders different constitutional violations, as well as contraventions of the foundational principles of the US legal system. All four courts agreed that the executive orders violated the right of the firms to protected speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. In one ruling, Judge Richard Leon, appointed by President George W Bush in 2002, said enjoining the orders was necessary to maintain ‘the independent and adversarial nature of our judicial system’.
The president’s entire history of litigation is to use time to his advantage
Lauren Stiller Rikleen
Executive Director, Lawyers Defending American Democracy
The four separate trial court rulings were consolidated before the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In early March, the DoJ filed a motion informing the Court that it was dropping its defence of the orders sanctioning the law firms. Less than 24 hours later, it reversed course and filed a brief seeking to withdraw its voluntary dismissal motion and pursue its defence of the presidential directives. The Court granted the DoJ’s motion to continue its appeals two weeks later.
By that point, there had already been several delays in the case, including a month-long hiatus during the federal government shutdown in autumn 2025. In November, the DoJ lawyer tasked with defending the administration’s orders, Richard Lawson, was replaced as Deputy Associate Attorney General by Abhishek Kambli.
‘The president’s entire history of litigation is to use time to his advantage,’ says Lauren Stiller Rikleen, the Boston-based Executive Director of Lawyers Defending American Democracy, which has filed an amicus brief in the case. ‘Time is always this administration’s best friend when it comes to its defence of lawsuits,’ she says, adding that the government appears determined to maintain what she describes as ‘the chilling effect’ of its orders across the entire legal profession for as long as possible.
Oral arguments in the case are now set to take place in mid-May and will be heard by a panel of three judges. In its brief, the administration has argued that the rulings of the lower courts amounted to the judiciary encroaching on the president’s constitutional power to take action to address ‘racial discrimination, national security risks, and other problems with certain law firms’ and that the orders were firmly within his presidential prerogative. If the rulings had been allowed to stand, it would have invited ‘judicial second-guessing of the President’s security clearance determinations,’ the brief states.
Wilmer, Jenner, Perkins Coie and Susman filed their own briefs in the consolidated case, asking the federal appeals court to affirm the permanent injunctions made by the lower courts of the executive orders targeting their firms. They all opposed the DoJ’s sudden reversal, describing it as ‘an unexplained request to withdraw yesterday’s voluntary dismissal, to which all parties had agreed.’
‘Speaking generally, the arguments that are rooted in national security may have the strongest basis but even at that, the facts matter and it is important to have consistency across administrations and the political spectrum,’ says Steven Richman, Chair of the IBA Bar Issues Commission, about the arguments put forward by the administration in its appellate brief. ‘There are certain prerogatives of the executive branch, but such must be situated in facts to which standards can be applied, and when extra-judicial and political statements are part of the mix, the basis for the appeals can be diluted,’ adds Richman, who speaks in a personal capacity.
Scott Cummings, Robert Henigson Professor of Legal Ethics at the UCLA School of Law in California, says the administration’s decision to pursue the defence of the orders was probably based on public relations considerations rather than the legal merits of the case. Pointing to other ongoing lawsuits challenging actions taken by the Trump administration, he says that much of the government’s decision-making is about ‘when is the appropriate moment at which to stand down that’s going to look the least weak possible.’