Conversation

A federal judge told the POTUS that his executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie for representing clients that Trump doesn't like was likely unconstitutional, and issued a restraining order halting it.

But the NYT reports that two days later, Mr. Trump signed a nearly identical executive order against the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.. Mr. Trump said he was taking the action to punish the firm for its ties to a lawyer who had pushed for him to be indicted and another who had brought a lawsuit against Jan. 6 rioters. The order barred the firm’s lawyers from dealing with the federal government and raised the possibility that its clients would lose their government contracts.

Now, Paul, Weiss has agreed to contribute $40 million in legal services to causes Mr. Trump has championed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/politics/paul-weiss-deal-trump-executive-order-withdrawn.html

From reading this Politico story, it's not clear the legal industry has any will to fight back, which is really discouraging.

"Lawyers at some of the nation’s largest law firms are afraid of President Donald Trump. Not just afraid of what his policies might mean for their clients, but now for their own livelihoods, as his attacks on individual firms have left a shocked industry struggling to respond."

"When Trump first took office in 2017, attorneys at Big Law firms lent thousands of pro-bono hours to legal efforts to stymie the administration’s most controversial policies, including the travel ban that restricted entry to the U.S. from certain Muslim-majority countries."

"After his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump became even more anathema to major firms; several of his criminal defense lawyers had to leave their firms in order to take him on as a client."

"Now, as he returns triumphant from the political wilderness, Trump finds a Washington legal community facing a dilemma — keep their heads down and avoid cases that may pit them against the administration, or continue representing clients that might anger a president increasingly willing to use his power to seek vengeance."

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-major-law-firm-sanctions-questions-00236446