Trump’s War on Law Firms is a War on You
Why he won’t stop at destroying the legal profession.
American democracy rests on certain foundational principles: the rule of law, checks and balances, and the idea that we live subject to laws, not men. In America, we believe that everyone is entitled to an equal chance—not an equal outcome—under fair and transparent rules. Over the past decade, Donald Trump has led a mounting assault on all the foundational norms, values, and institutions that make the America we know and love possible.
From the first days of his second term, through personnel, pardons, and policies, Trump has made clear that his America does not resemble the one we love. His America rewards allies with impunity and windfalls, and punishes his critics with investigations and prosecutions. He has subverted our system of fair play under law and replaced it with a rigged and punitive racket.
The way he has squarely targeted the justice system in the first few months of his second term should make any patriotic American’s blood run cold. He has purged the Department of Justice (and other agencies) of talented career lawyers, especially those who did their duty by investigating January 6 and other crimes committed by Trump or his allies. He has stacked the Department, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Attorneys' Offices, with stooges and flunkies loyal to him rather than the law. He celebrated his inauguration by pardoning violent criminals among his supporters and has since moved quickly to weaponize the government against his critics.
And he’s come for the lawyers. Earlier this year, he issued a raft of unprecedented and unconstitutional executive orders targeting dozens of law firms, specifically on the basis that they have been associated with litigation and causes—or even lawyers—he dislikes. Trump unfailingly chooses unsympathetic targets when he wants to violate norms, grab extraconstitutional power, or weaken the laws that constrain him. In elite coastal law firms led by multimillionaires, he may have found his least sympathetic victims.
Americans need not sympathize with wealthy lawyers’ economic challenges, and they would not be wrong to criticize the long-term left-leaning sympathies of Big Law and the organized Bar. But we should all take note of this assault, not out of love for lawyers, but out of concern about what it portends for our system of ordered liberty. We should admire the attorneys and law firms who have shown the courage to fight this assault—and reserve limitless contempt for those who capitulated, unwilling to risk falling from great wealth to merely considerable wealth in defense of the law.
These illegitimate and corrupt assaults on law firms are, in one sense, simply another abuse of power by this president, and should be opposed on those grounds alone. Government power should never be used to serve the whims and grievances of the president, to silence dissent, or to concentrate all societal power in the government. But that is precisely what this administration is doing—systematically targeting law firms, the judiciary, the media, universities, and private citizens alike.
Nonetheless, there’s something especially pernicious about the attacks on law firms. Our system of government relies on checks and balances and the separation of powers to protect the rights and liberties of all Americans. The federal judiciary, in particular, has (though imperfectly) performed its role of checking presidential overreach. As a result, the president and his allies have waged a relentless campaign to delegitimize and intimidate the courts. For good reason, many observers worry whether this administration will comply with court orders that go against it. The courts have no police force to compel it to do so.
There’s another significant way in which our system limits the power of judges. In the U.S., a court cannot consider overreach by the executive unless a citizen files a complaint. Generally, that involves retaining a lawyer. If lawyers and law firms begin to fear taking a case for fear of retaliation by the White House, some cases may never make it through the courthouse door. Seen this way, the attack on law firms is part of a two-front strategy to neuter an indispensable branch of government. Trump and his allies are choking off lawsuits before they reach the judiciary on the front end while questioning the legitimacy of successful lawsuits on the back end. If this strategy proves successful, all of our rights and liberties will stand exposed, and vulnerable as never before, to government incursion by this and future administrations.
Lawyers often congratulate ourselves on being more than mere capitalists; as professionals, we have a special role to play in a nation under law. When the White House began issuing these executive orders, the legal community faced its first big test under Trump 2.0, and many of the targeted firms failed miserably. Nine reached some kind of settlement with the administration, promising nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services. A few fought back. Countless others stood silent and, one can reasonably surmise, went about their business with an added wariness of displeasing those in power.
The first of the capitulating firms was Paul, Weiss. A storied New York mega-firm, it’s long been a draw for the nation’s brightest, most ambitious lawyers. Despite its prestige and power it quickly folded and reached a deal to meet administration demands and provide $40 million in free legal services to Trump.
The firm’s statement of principles was written in 1963 by one of its most esteemed partners, Judge Simon H. Rifkind. It includes a commitment “to govern ourselves as members of a free democratic society with responsibilities both to our profession and our country.” The deal was a rank betrayal of these principles.
Amid all this, the granddaughters of Judge Rifkind, Amy and Nina Rifkind—both of them practicing lawyers—released a public letter addressing the situation. They lamented the firm’s actions and the fact that, when tested at such a critical moment, it failed so spectacularly to live up to their grandfather’s aspirations for the firm:
“We are confident that our grandfather would have recognized in this delicate moment, when the country hovers between a new authoritarianism and its longstanding freedoms, that what is good for the nation and rule of law is good for Paul, Weiss, not the other way around … We are confident that neither our grandfather, nor his colleagues with whom he built Paul, Weiss, would have negotiated a truce for themselves when the rest of the legal profession remains under threat for doing its jobs as lawyers.”
Paul, Weiss was the first, not the last, to buckle. Gold-plated names like Skadden, Milbank, Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, A&O Shearman, Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett, and Cadwalader followed. These firms are among the most storied, most wealthy, and most powerful in America. These partnerships of our best and brightest attorneys, all bent the knee before the powerful rather than defend their profession.
The reason they caved is because they’re scared. One lesson of these last several months is that those who abuse government power need not use brute force, masked thugs, and disappearances to cow, intimidate, and suppress. Mere economic threats, or suggestions of endless investigations, can be enough. The law firms are not alone. Universities, media companies, and others have made the same rough calculus. They chose to take what they perceive as the easy route rather than the correct one.
From a short-term business perspective, this makes perfect sense. But in the longer-term, it’s a catastrophic miscalculation. When we, lawyers and others, refuse to defend our liberties in the hope that capitulation will appease those who would abuse power, we invite further abuses. History has taught that the demon of autocracy, once invited in, tends to take root, gather strength, and resist exorcism.
It would be nice to count on lawyers to resist assaults on the Constitution. After all, we lawyers do take an oath upon admission to the Bar, typically affirming we will “obey and defend the Constitution of the United States.” But, for those who hold their oath cheap, prospects for the long-term viability of our business should add further motivation. An America in which rights depend not on the law but on the whim of the president is a badly diminished country. It is a country in which fewer deals are made, less capital is invested, and fewer businesses form. It’s an America in which businesses protect themselves not with contracts or sound lawsuits, but with donations to campaigns and presidential libraries. It’s an America with much less need for lawyers—and a darker future for all of us.
This moment calls for a robust, unapologetic, sustained defense of the rule of law in America. The legal profession will forever bear the black mark and scandal of this moment in which many of our leading law firms—those best positioned to resist government pressure—chose instead to cut a deal or keep their heads down and hope for the best. The rest of us must not follow their ignominious lead.
We must defend our inheritance of liberty under law against all who threaten it. We must defend lawyers against attacks from the government, even the lawyers who won’t defend us. We do it not for them. We do it for ourselves and the country we love. Each one of us who sets that example makes it that much easier for others to join. A corrupt president can buy off a law firm or nine, but he cannot win against a united people who truly value their liberties and the laws that protect them.
Gregg Nunziata is the executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law.
 | A guest post by
|
Upon hearing about PaulWeiss capitulation, as a retired civil rights lawyer, I had to do something. I stood in front of the PaulWeiss San Francisco office and protested. I was alone the first few times but 50 wonderful members of Indivisible East Bay joined me. I am sickened by the cowardice of PaulWeiss and the other 8:firms which have overtly joined forces with the felon tyrant and the many others that have silently and fearfully joined the ranks of cowards letting the rule of law be destroyed. See Youtube retired lawyer protests KPIX.
The Society for the Rule of Law stands firmly on the right side of history. Attorneys in private practice, academia, state government, and those departing the federal civil service have consistently demonstrated greater competence than those purporting to represent the United States—namely, President Trump and his enablers. This disparity is being exposed in courtrooms almost daily. Judges are increasingly noting that Department of Justice lawyers are not entitled to deference or the presumption of regularity in government conduct.
This reality has not gone unnoticed within the legal community. It is steadily eroding the willingness of many law firms to defend the Administration’s actions before other members of the Bar and in conversations with clients who have experienced arbitrary and capricious treatment. One striking example is the case before Judge Burroughs involving the Administration’s cancellation of billions of dollars in contracts related to medical research and public health. The justification—that Harvard’s policies are “anti-Semitic”—is specious, especially given that the university’s president, a substantial portion of its faculty, and many of the affected researchers are Jewish (as is Judge Burroughs who had difficulty appearing dispassionate in the face of such arguments).
It is outrageous that the Administration has targeted specific law firms it deems hostile—suspending security clearances, terminating contracts, restricting federal access, and demanding contractor disclosures. In response, firms like Perkins Coie and Jenner & Block fought back in court, winning First Amendment injunctions. Others—including Paul, Weiss; Skadden; and Kirkland & Ellis—settled, agreeing to costly pro bono commitments for administration-approved causes and scaling back or eliminating DEI programs.
The Administration has lost every case in which law firms opposed its unlawful and unconstitutional Executive Orders. The Department of Justice has not sought to appeal any of these adverse rulings, since intimidation—not legal victory—is its goal. Sadly, corporate America has largely cowered. Professor Erran Carmel of American University's Kogod School of Business recently published initial research examining how Fortune 500 companies have altered (largely abandoned) their DEI policies in response to today’s political climate. See “Caution in the C-suite: How business leaders are navigating Trump 2.0,” at The Conversation.
Timothy Snyder’s most famous warning about “obeying in advance” comes from his short book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017). There, he describes how authoritarian regimes rely less on constant coercion than on the willingness of individuals and institutions to anticipate what those in power want—and to conform preemptively. The jury system suggests that plaintiffs with valid claims of discrimination will win many cases, since they need only demonstrate civil liability by a preponderance of the evidence. Many of these cases will be highly fact-specific and cannot be dismissed on summary judgment.
It remains to be seen whether companies will find themselves defending—and losing—thousands of lawsuits. Causes of action will arise under both federal and state law and will prove costly to all parties involved. In many jurisdictions, the defending corporations will not be sympathetic defendants, and many employees may not provide helpful testimony if their friends and colleagues have been negatively impacted.
Some corporations—such as Oracle, Morgan Stanley, McDonald’s, and others—have moved their legal work away from firms that compromised their independence, particularly those entangled in disputes with the government. These companies recognized that some firms prioritized maintaining favorable relations with the Administration over rigorously pursuing their clients’ interests. Within law firms, veritable civil wars have erupted: litigators abhor the idea of compromising with unlawful interference and executive overreach, while transactional partners live in fear. Firms are losing associates who reject their political culture. Prominent lawyers are leaving firms that lack the will to uphold the core principles set out in applicable Codes of Conduct governing the practice of law, which are generally patterned on the ABA Model Rules.
Significantly, the generally conservative but pro–rule of law American Bar Association has filed its own lawsuit against the Trump Administration. See “ABA sues over Trump administration's intimidation of law firms and lawyers,” ABA Journal, Amanda Robert, June 16, 2025, and American Bar Association v. Executive Office of the President, et al., Civil Case No. 25-1888, filed June 16, 2025.
Many law firms have had to “pay to play.” Corporations that severed ties with firms willing to capitulate to this extortion recognize that both the country and their commercial interests depend on the rule of law—now threatened by the Administration in areas such as the imposition of punitive tariffs on traditional allies and major trading partners like Canada, Brazil, and Mexico.
Judge Beryl Howell, in granting a temporary restraining order on March 12, 2025, warned that such retaliation imposes a “chilling harm of blizzard proportions” across the legal profession. Lawyers cannot serve clients effectively if they fear reprisal for doing so. See TRO Hearing Transcript. Corporate counsel and boards who ignore this reality may breach their fiduciary duties and invite shareholder suits.