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Sherrilyn Ifill: Trump's Attack on Lawyers and Law Firms Takes a Page Out of the Southern 1950s Playbook
Sherrilyn Ifill - Trump's Attack on Lawyers and Law Firms Takes a Page Out of the Southern 1950s Playbook
American Authoritarians Fear the Uniquely American Power of Litigation
Sherrilyn Ifill
Mar 24, 2025
Lawyers were still recovering from the shock of the capitulation of Paul, Weiss, one of the nation’s most well-respected law firms, to demands made by the Trump Administration after the President issued an Executive Order targeting the work of the firm.[ii] A similar ordered issued against law firm Perkins Coie was met with a strong offense. Perkins Coie sued the Trump Administration and earned a temporary restraining order[iii] stopping the Administration from imposing the threats it had outlined in its order. The sudden and shocking capitulation of Paul Weiss, seemed mystifying. And ominous.
Less than 24 hours later, the Trump Administration issued yet another EO targeting lawyers. This one was the worst yet. The Order, entitled “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court”[iv] instructs Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate lawyers that have filed suit against him or his Administration or agencies over the past 8 years to determine whether they have engaged in fraud or pursued baseless partisan attacks. In a litany of projection, the EO purports to remind attorneys of the requirements that lawyers ensure that their statements have a “reasonably based” on “evidentiary support,” and reminds attorneys of the “solemn obligation…to respect the rule of law and uphold our Nation’s legal system with integrity.” The President encourages the Attorney General to refer attorneys for disciplinary action to the bar, pursue sanctions under Rule 11 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, and to conduct a review of cases filed against the federal government over the past 8 years – especially those involving “homeland security, public safety or election integrity.”
It is not an exaggeration to say that if advanced, such actions by the Department of Justice would potentially chill critical portions of the legal ecosystem whose core work is challenging government overreach (administrative law practices, civil rights and civil liberties lawyers, election lawyers, immigration lawyers), and the profession more broadly. And in specifically calling out Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias by name, and singling out immigration attorneys, Trump continues his unsavory targeting of members of the bar who have bested his Administration and Republican officials in court in important cases. The EO is an ugly, aggressive antidemocratic attack designed to cow lawyers and derail the work that has constituted the most effective check on Trump’s excesses: litigation.
In both his first term and since January, Trump’s most expansive plans have been trimmed, slowed and in some instances stopped by litigation.[v] Just during the past 3 months, lawyers challenging DOGE cuts and closures, access to Treasury records, restrictions on birthright citizenship, closing the USAID, suspending refugee admissions, firing a member of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, shutting down the CFPB, mass termination of federal employees, and the freeze by OMB on non-profit grants have successfully obtained temporary restraining orders, preliminary injunctions or have prevailed outright. It’s hard to sustain “shock and awe” when federal courts order thousands of fired workers back to office, and dress down seemingly unprepared or mendacious DOJ lawyers who make extravagant and implausible claims to executive power in hearings.
/snip
American Authoritarians Fear the Uniquely American Power of Litigation
Sherrilyn Ifill
Mar 24, 2025
Lawyers were still recovering from the shock of the capitulation of Paul, Weiss, one of the nation’s most well-respected law firms, to demands made by the Trump Administration after the President issued an Executive Order targeting the work of the firm.[ii] A similar ordered issued against law firm Perkins Coie was met with a strong offense. Perkins Coie sued the Trump Administration and earned a temporary restraining order[iii] stopping the Administration from imposing the threats it had outlined in its order. The sudden and shocking capitulation of Paul Weiss, seemed mystifying. And ominous.
Less than 24 hours later, the Trump Administration issued yet another EO targeting lawyers. This one was the worst yet. The Order, entitled “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court”[iv] instructs Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate lawyers that have filed suit against him or his Administration or agencies over the past 8 years to determine whether they have engaged in fraud or pursued baseless partisan attacks. In a litany of projection, the EO purports to remind attorneys of the requirements that lawyers ensure that their statements have a “reasonably based” on “evidentiary support,” and reminds attorneys of the “solemn obligation…to respect the rule of law and uphold our Nation’s legal system with integrity.” The President encourages the Attorney General to refer attorneys for disciplinary action to the bar, pursue sanctions under Rule 11 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, and to conduct a review of cases filed against the federal government over the past 8 years – especially those involving “homeland security, public safety or election integrity.”
It is not an exaggeration to say that if advanced, such actions by the Department of Justice would potentially chill critical portions of the legal ecosystem whose core work is challenging government overreach (administrative law practices, civil rights and civil liberties lawyers, election lawyers, immigration lawyers), and the profession more broadly. And in specifically calling out Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias by name, and singling out immigration attorneys, Trump continues his unsavory targeting of members of the bar who have bested his Administration and Republican officials in court in important cases. The EO is an ugly, aggressive antidemocratic attack designed to cow lawyers and derail the work that has constituted the most effective check on Trump’s excesses: litigation.
In both his first term and since January, Trump’s most expansive plans have been trimmed, slowed and in some instances stopped by litigation.[v] Just during the past 3 months, lawyers challenging DOGE cuts and closures, access to Treasury records, restrictions on birthright citizenship, closing the USAID, suspending refugee admissions, firing a member of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, shutting down the CFPB, mass termination of federal employees, and the freeze by OMB on non-profit grants have successfully obtained temporary restraining orders, preliminary injunctions or have prevailed outright. It’s hard to sustain “shock and awe” when federal courts order thousands of fired workers back to office, and dress down seemingly unprepared or mendacious DOJ lawyers who make extravagant and implausible claims to executive power in hearings.
/snip