Over 500 Law Firms Challenge Trump’s Attack on the Rule of Law—But Where Are the Major Firms?
April 7, 2025
On Friday a group of 508 law firms from around the country filed a friend of the court brief in support of a case brought by the law firm Perkins Coie challenging an executive order issued by President Trump imposing punitive sanctions on the firm. The executive order was in retaliation for the firm’s representation of various clients associated with the Democratic Party, including Hillary Clinton.
The Executive Order describes its purpose in the following terms “The dishonest and dangerous activity of the law firm Perkins Coie LLP (“Perkins Coie”) has affected this country for decades. Notably, in 2016 while representing failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, which then manufactured a false “dossier” designed to steal an election. This egregious activity is part of a pattern. Perkins Coie has worked with activist donors including George Soros to judicially overturn popular, necessary, and democratically enacted election laws, including those requiring voter identification. In one such case, a court was forced to sanction Perkins Coie attorneys for an unethical lack of candor before the court.”
The brief was authored by Donald Verrilli, a partner at the law firm Munger Toles and Olson and a former solicitor general of the United States. It argues “In recent weeks, the President has issued not one but five executive orders imposing punitive sanctions on leading law firms in undisguised retaliation for representations that the firm, or its former partners, have undertaken, and more may be in the offing. Those Orders pose a grave threat to our system of constitutional governance and to the rule of law itself. The judiciary should act with resolve—now—to ensure that this abuse of executive power ceases.”
It goes on to state “History offers indelible reminders of the perils associated with governmental intrusion into the autonomy of the legal system and with political retribution aimed at lawyers thought to stand in the way of a regime’s political objectives. In too many countries and instances to name, regimes have disbarred, prosecuted and jailed lawyers who dared to represent opposition figures or challenge government actions, with predictable results for the rule of law and the integrity of the legal profession.”
While it is commendable that so many law firms signed on to this brief, it is striking that very few of the largest, most influential law firms in the country did so. Of the top 100 US law firms, ranked by 2023 revenue, the only ones that signed the brief are Covington & Burling, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, Fenwick & West, Susman Godfrey, Crowell & Moring, Jenner & Block, and Davis Wright Tremaine. (Freshfields US likewise signed the brief, though it does not appear in the Am Law 100).
Other top 100 firms deserving kudos for their courage in this moment of crisis are Perkins Coie (for filing suit alongside Wilmer and Jenner), Williams & Connolly (for representing Perkins), and Cooley (for representing Jenner).
Within the second hundred US law firms, the brave signatories are Manatt Phelps & Phillips, Munger Tolles & Olson, Foley Hoag, Stoel Rives, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, and Hanson Bridgett. The legal blog, “Above the Law,” has posted a fuller accounting of the response by every Am Law 200 firm here.
I commend these firms for standing up to support of human rights and the rule of law.
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