President Donald Trump‘s dominance of Washington isn’t just dividing Democrats, who are struggling for a unified resistance strategy, it’s now dividing the legal world.
The president on Tuesday issued an executive order targeting Jenner & Block, the law firm where Andrew Weissmann, who worked on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, was employed.
The order calls for the suspension of security clearances for lawyers and cutting off federal contracts, citing the law firm’s “obvious partisan representations to achieve political ends” among other claims.
This is the latest instance of Trump using the power of the executive office to crack down on law firms with ties to people who have previously investigated the president, creating a chilling effect among lawyers.
One of the most prominent divisions in the legal world came as more than 140 alumni of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP wrote to the Democratic-leaning law firm’s chair, Brad Karp, requesting him to recommit to the firm’s democratic values.
Karp angered many in the legal world after he struck a deal with Trump that led to the rescinding of an executive order that targeted the firm’s pro bono services, ended its federal contracts, and stripped it of security clearances.
The order also singled out Mark Pomerantz, a former Paul Weiss partner who led the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump’s finances.
Trump claimed that Karp agreed to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services, pursue merit-based hiring instead of diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, and represent a broad spectrum of clients regardless of their political affiliation.
The deal brokered on March 20 led to fierce backlash.
“We expected the firm to be a leader in standing up for the legal profession, the adversary
system, and the right to counsel,” signees of the letter to Karp wrote on Monday. “Instead of a ringing defense of the values of democracy, we witnessed a craven surrender to, and thus complicity in, what is perhaps the gravest threat to the independence of the legal profession since at least the days of
Senator Joseph McCarthy.”
Trump’s March 14 executive order “could easily have destroyed our firm,” Karp said in an email to employees on Sunday explaining the deal. “It brought the full weight of the government down on our firm, our people, and our clients,” Karp added.
But several experts continued to denounce Karp’s actions.
“I think he had a hard choice. I don’t think this was easy,” said Elizabeth Grossman, one of the chief organizers of the letter and a former Paul Weiss employee from 2016 to 2019. “But I think that at the end of the day, he went with the bottom line of the firm and didn’t think about the ripple effects this would have on the rule of law.”
Ultimately, Grossman, now the executive director of the pro-democracy group Common Cause Illinois, said, “He made the wrong choice.”
“I see the executive order that Trump issued against Paul Weiss, obviously as part of a much broader campaign against the judicial system, the legal community, and quite frankly against the rule of law, and bedrock principles that undergird and ensure the functioning of our democracy,” added Mary Spooner, one of the letter’s signees, who spent nine years at Paul Weiss as an attorney and three years before that as a paralegal.
Other legal experts who didn’t sign the letter similarly denounced Paul Weiss’s deal with the Trump administration.
“The letter written by Paul Weiss alumni is a stark reminder of the best of what lawyers expect from the rest of the profession, and how craven and concerning the law firm’s decision was in caving to the White House’s demands,” said national security attorney Bradley Moss.
“The legal profession is a critical line of defense in upholding the rule of law, and it is meant to do so irrespective of politics,” Moss continued. “The moment lawyers start restricting themselves for political reasons, members of the media may follow suit. That way lies degradation of our constitutional foundations and the risk that no one will be there to hold accountable government run amok, no matter if it is a Democratic or Republican administration.”
With Democrats shut out of power in the White House and Congress, Trump’s most significant losses have come through the judicial system, with several federal judges ruling against some of his executive orders.
Trump has called for the impeachment of these judges, earning a rare rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
The president’s attempts to also crack down on law firms he dislikes come as Democrats have not yet decided on an effective strategy to counter Trump.
“The judicial system is the front line of this battle. It’s become clear the front line is not in Congress,” said Randy Jones, a Democratic political consultant. “Because I think that in order to fight this administration effectively, it’s been made clear those fights have to come from the courts, and those fights have to come from the attorneys who file the suits and the motions with those courts.”
“It wasn’t Congress who blocked DOGE from accessing personal information from the Social Security Administration. It was skilled attorneys representing AFSCME,” Jones said, pointing to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency facing legal setbacks in its efforts to get access to sensitive records through the Social Security Administration. “That’s the front line of this fight today.”
Douglas Wilson, a Democratic strategist based in Charlotte, North Carolina, claimed that Paul Weiss did not have to capitulate to Trump’s executive order and should have taken the matter to court as another law firm did.
Trump also targeted the law firm Covington & Burling through an executive order while Perkins Coie, another prominent law firm that Trump targeted with an executive order, took the issue to court and won a temporary restraining order against the order.
“He could have taken the administration to court like everybody else is doing,” Wilson said. “Look how many executive orders have been struck down by the court. Most recently, the immigration one, about the 18th century law (The Alien Enemies Act of 1798) that the President was trying to use. That’s what the judicial system is for. ”
Wilson also compared Trump’s tactics to famous mobsters in American culture such as Tony Soprano and the Godfather series, as did other experts who claimed Trump’s actions amounted to bullying.
It’s led to some Trump opponents even having trouble finding legal representation.
“I imagine that these sorts of threats and actions will, if Trump is given the power, they’ll start trickling down to much smaller firms who simply don’t have the connections or the resources of their prestige to stand up,” added Spooner, who signed the letter. “Paul Weiss is uniquely positioned to take that stand, and it didn’t do it. And I think in doing so it’s ceded power to Trump. That is quite troubling.”
Aside from the letter, Grossman said the group is looking at the next steps.
“I think that people generally want to be organized, especially now when they’re feeling hopeless and you can get a lot of the news is just so horrifying,” Grossman said. “And I think telling people we’re doing something, here’s how you can get involved in empowering people, is what people want.”
