The chilling effect of Trump's war against the legal establishment

CNN

11-03-2025

The Trump administration is waging a war against the legal community in the United States with a target list growing by the day.
Thus far, President Donald Trump has issued executive orders that have targeted two law firms representing his perceived enemies, and his administration has attacked firms and law schools it says may be violating presidential initiatives against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
The executive order Trump signed restricting Perkins Coie's access to classified information and federal buildings and thus hurting its ability to work for some clients is sending shockwaves through the legal establishment nationwide.
'We've never seen a president put out a specific order about a law firm,' Ellen Podgor, a Stetson University law professor and legal ethicist, told CNN.
'You're taking away the ability of an attorney to act in their role as a lawyer,' Podgor added. 'The order to me is … depriving our whole right to counsel. This is a major amendment to our Constitution.'
The White House's retaliation has been boldly a political response aimed at a group of lawyers and businesses that are known very little in public life outside of Washington. But the implications may be profound, with Trump's administration positioning itself in direct opposition to major institutions, using its power to quell the work of experienced and influential attorneys.
The moves also encroach on what the legal community views as a fundamental right for people needing lawyers to have the freedom to choose who represents them — an ability even Trump had as a criminal defendant being prosecuted by the Justice Department.
The executive order about Perkins Coie suspends the national security clearances of attorneys at the firm, because it was part of the effort to commission the now-infamous Russia dossier about Trump and his advisers during the 2016 election. The White House says it also may limit the firm's lawyers from visiting federal buildings and instructed agencies not to hire into government jobs employees from the firm.
Perkins Coie has said it will challenge the order in court and has enlisted another large private law firm to represent it.
A White House aide said Thursday the administration plans to review other law firms' practices, saying there may be more retribution to come. Trump's order on Perkins Coie included a call for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to review other 'large, influential, or industry leading law firms' in case they offer preferential hiring based on applicants' races.
In all, the steps the administration has taken have sent a 'chilling' tone across the legal industry, said Cari Brunelle, the founder of a legal advisory firm that works with several large American law firms.
'This is unprecedented in our country. … The message is: Watch where you step,' she said.
In recent history, the closest comparison to the Trump White House blacklisting some in the legal industry is the approach then-President Richard Nixon took when he made an 'enemies list,' Brunelle added.
So far, law firms have reacted out of fear, Brunelle said. Many want to avoid becoming a target, while others are looking at and rewriting what their websites say, especially regarding their diversity, equity and inclusion policies, which the administration says it is taking into consideration as it considers restricting more firms.
Other lawyers' security clearances were stripped too in recent weeks by White House order, including those at Washington's largest private law firm, Covington & Burling, who have been involved in representing former special counsel Jack Smith, now a private citizen.
'American law firms have always represented interests to the US government, without worrying if there would be retribution or sanctions until now,' Brunelle said. 'It's created just an incredible amount of fear.' (Brunelle's company doesn't have Perkins Coie or Covington & Burling as its clients.)
Brunelle said there could be safety in numbers, if many large law firm leaders, law schools and others in the legal industry publicly criticized Trump's approach. But so far, the response has been muted from law firms themselves.
Marc Elias, a lawyer to the Democrats who until 2021 was Perkins Coie's primary political law attorney, critiqued the lack of large law firms rallying behind those who lost security clearances in an email newsletter Monday. 'That has not happened,' he wrote.
Law schools and independent groups that represent the legal community have been bolder in pushing back.
Georgetown University Law Center responded, for instance, to a letter from the interim US attorney for Washington, DC, threatening not to hire its students if the school's curriculum wasn't in line with Trump's DEI policies.
'The First Amendment, however, guarantees that the government cannot direct what Georgetown and its faculty teach and how to teach it,' Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor wrote last week to Ed Martin.
Several prominent national groups have called the Trump administration's actions hurtful to the rule of law in the US.
The American College of Trial Lawyers condemned recent statements from Trump's close adviser Elon Musk that called for the impeachment of some judges.
'We call upon our Fellows and all lawyers, judges, legislators, executive officials, historians, political scientists, and citizens who value our democracy to speak out and condemn threats to impeach judges because of disagreement with the judge's lawful orders,' the group said.
The elite, invitation-only group also responded to the executive orders retaliating against Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling by calling them 'escalating' threats and an undermining of the justice system.
'Lawyers throughout the country should unite in condemning these actions in the strongest possible terms,' the group said.
The American Bar Association, a voluntary organization with a large number of America's lawyers as members, also has been deeply critical of the Trump administration's actions in recent weeks, with its president, William Bay, saying the approaches are an attack on the rule of law.
The group has been in the crosshairs of conservatives for years. The Federal Trade Commission last month banned its political appointees from taking leadership positions in the ABA or participating in its events, Bay pointed out. FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, in a letter to staff in mid-February, called the group 'beholden to the interests of Big Tech' and a 'radical left-wing' organization 'guided by the principles of the Democrat Party.'
In a move with similar results, more than two dozen Justice Department employees who were set to speak at the ABA's White Collar conference in Miami canceled their plans to attend, the group's organizer, Raymond Banoun, told CNN.
When the ethics panel spoke at the conference Friday, about some of the most political moves by the administration, there were essentially no Justice Department staffers there to hear them.