Latest news with #lawFirms
Washington Post
27-05-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Judge tosses Trump order punishing the law firm WilmerHale
President Donald Trump's push to punish law firms suffered another defeat Tuesday, as a federal judge in D.C. struck down his executive order sanctioning the law firm WilmerHale. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled that Trump's order was unconstitutional and blocked the government from enforcing it, becoming the third judge this month to side with a law firm that had challenged the president's sanctions.
Washington Post
27-05-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Trump campaign against law firms dealt another setback as judge blocks executive order
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's campaign against the legal profession hit another setback Tuesday as a federal judge struck down yet another executive order that sought to sanction one of the country's most prestigious law firms. The order in favor of WilmerHale marks the third time this month that a federal judge in Washington has deemed Trump's series of law firm executive orders to be unconstitutional and has permanently barred their enforcement.
New York Times
27-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Judge Strikes Down Trump Order Targeting WilmerHale
A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that President Trump's attempt to punish an elite law firm associated with his political opposition was unconstitutional and directed the government not to enforce an order Mr. Trump signed in March that had threatened its business. Siding with WilmerHale, which sued to block the president's order, Judge Richard J. Leon of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that Mr. Trump appeared intent on coercing the firm to the bargaining table under the threat of harsh penalties. The ruling was welcome news for the handful of law firms that opted to fight the White House even as several of their peers caved to the pressure campaign and made deals with Mr. Trump to avoid persecution. Judges have already rejected similarly punitive executive orders aimed at the firms Perkins Coie and Jenner & Block. 'The cornerstone of the American system of justice is an independent judiciary and an independent bar willing to tackle unpopular cases, however daunting,' Judge Leon wrote in a 73-page opinion. 'The Founding Fathers knew this!' 'Accordingly, they took pains to enshrine in the Constitution certain rights that would serve as the foundation for that independence,' he wrote. 'Little wonder that in the nearly 250 years since the Constitution was adopted no executive order has been issued challenging these fundamental rights.' All through March, Mr. Trump issued half a dozen orders individually demonizing firms that had worked for prominent Democrats or aided in efforts to investigate his ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. In each case, the orders leveraged the force of the federal government to give the threats teeth, including by having those firms' lawyers barred from federal buildings and stripped of their security clearances. The order targeting WilmerHale was especially pointed, given the firm's longtime association with Robert S. Mueller III, who returned there upon retiring from his role as the special counsel overseeing the investigation into Moscow's election interference that boosted Mr. Trump against his rival in the 2016 race, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Along with other firms such as Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey, WilmerHale sued to stop the executive orders from taking effect, asking Judge Leon to proceed directly to a decision with no trial, as the only question at issue was whether or not a president could take such an extraordinary action. At the same time, other white shoe firms such as Paul Weiss, Skadden and Latham & Watkins responded by agreeing to take on hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of pro bono legal work on behalf of causes Mr. Trump favors, spurring resignations and second-guessing.
CBS News
27-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Federal judge strikes down Trump executive order targeting law firm WilmerHale, calling it "unconstitutional"
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday struck down President Trump's executive order targeting D.C.-based law firm WilmerHale, declaring the order "unconstitutional" and permanently blocking the administration from enforcing it. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued his opinion Tuesday afternoon, blocking the president's efforts to restrict Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP as a part of the Trump administration's crusade against large law firms that have provoked the ire of the president and his allies. "For the reasons set forth below, I have concluded that this order must be struck down in its entirety as unconstitutional," Leon wrote in the beginning of his order. "Indeed, to rule otherwise would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the Founding Fathers!" The executive orders the president has signed have targeted law firms including Perkins Coie, Paul Weiss, and Jenner & Block. So far, the firms have been winning their cases against the administration in court. This is a developing story. Kathryn Watson Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report.
New York Times
23-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Trump's Order Targeting Jenner & Block Was Unconstitutional, Judge Rules
A federal judge on Friday struck down an executive order signed by President Trump that threatened penalties against the law firm Jenner & Block, which once employed a top attorney who helped investigate the president alongside the team run by Robert S. Mueller III, who was then the special counsel. It was the second time a federal judge found one of Mr. Trump's orders targeting elite law firms unconstitutional, after another judge ruled earlier in May that an essentially identical order targeting the firm Perkins Coie appeared retributive and designed to strong-arm the firm into serving the White House. Two other firms — WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey — have asked for similarly decisive rulings in lawsuits they brought. In March, after a string of similar orders that openly detailed the president's political grievances and furthered his campaign of retribution, Mr. Trump released an order targeting Jenner & Block, citing its past decision to hire Andrew Weissmann after the special counsel's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Weissman left the firm in 2021. The order leveraged the full force of the federal government to curtail Jenner & Block's business. In an opinion on Friday, Judge John D. Bates wrote that the orders were 'doubly violative of the Constitution.' Not only did they violate the First Amendment by seeking to muzzle a perceived critic of the president, he wrote, they also had the effect of intimidating all other lawyers whose work 'protects against governmental viewpoint becoming government-imposed orthodoxy.' 'This case arises from one of a series of executive orders targeting law firms that, in one way or another, did not bow to the current presidential administration's political orthodoxy,' he wrote. 'Like the others in the series, this order — which takes aim at the global law firm Jenner & Block — makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed.' The order had directed federal agencies to identify and cancel contracts with the firm, suspend security clearances held by its lawyers and bar its staff from federal buildings, all in the name of 'national security and other interests of the United States.' Around the same time that Mr. Trump began releasing the orders, a cluster of other top firms rushed to pre-emptively head off retaliation by offering millions of dollars of pro bono work on areas of common ground, where they said the values of the firm and the White House appeared to align. Between white shoe firms such as Paul Weiss, Skadden, Latham & Watkins and half a dozen others, the White House secured pledges approaching $1 billion worth of free work. But a minority of firms, including Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey and WilmerHale, went in the opposite direction and sued to stop the orders, arguing that they were clearly coercive. In court, lawyers pointed out that the moment other firms cut deals, the grave national security concerns cited in the executive orders abruptly vanished. With Judge Bates's order on Friday, federal judges have so far agreed. Permanently barring the government from enforcing the order, Judge Bates noted that the larger legal profession now faced a 'forward-looking censorship scheme,' in which the threat of punishment could be trotted out repeatedly, any time any firm appeared to be resisting Mr. Trump's political agenda. 'The administration has shown a repeated willingness to haggle, sending the message loud and clear that Jenner can spare itself — if it compromises its speech,' Judge Bates wrote. 'So whereas retaliation usually punishes once and moves along, the retaliation here is ongoing and avoidable.' Last week, Jenner & Block's lawyers notified the court that despite the lawsuit challenging the terms of the executive order, several of its lawyers had since received letters informing them that their security clearances were being suspended anyway. At the same time, firms that reached a deal have seen the scope of their agreements broaden, as Mr. Trump has reportedly mused about deploying those firms toward political causes such as renegotiating trade deals. While Jenner & Block had asked Judge Bates to go beyond striking down the executive order and also block any future actions that could arise from the president's attacks, Judge Bates declined to do so. Noting that he was 'very sympathetic' and even found it plausible that the government would retaliate again given its continual hounding of the firm during the litigation, he wrote that it was beyond the court's power to halt 'hypothetical future actions,' even if they were likely unconstitutional follow-up attacks.
