Law Professors’ Amicus Brief Supporting the Perkins Coie Law Firm in Challenge to Executive Order

The transient, simply filed yesterday in district court docket is right here; I used to be happy to be one of many very many signers. Here is the Abstract of Argument:

The President’s Order is a self-declared act of retribution that targets a legislation agency for representing purchasers and causes the President disfavors. In inflicting this retribution, the Order contradicts centuries of precedent safeguarding free speech, the suitable of affiliation, and the suitable to petition. These precedents set up that the First Modification “prohibits authorities officers from ‘counting on the specter of invoking authorized sanctions and different technique of coercion … to attain the suppression’ of disfavored speech.” Nat’l Rifle Ass’n v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 176 (2024) (quoting Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58, 67 (1963)). Concentrating on Perkins Coie for representing purchasers and espousing views the President dislikes is viewpoint discrimination, plain and easy.

The Order violates the Fifth and Sixth Amendments as properly. The Fifth and Sixth Amendments had been designed to verify government energy and to make sure a significant solution to assert rights earlier than a judicial authority. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 61, 64–65 (1932). Forcing legal professionals to bend to the preferences of federal officers robs purchasers of their proper to counsel and introduces the very kind of presidency interference within the administration of justice the Founders acted to stop.

Lastly, the Order threatens the rule of legislation. If the Order stands, it will likely be open season on legal professionals who’ve dared to tackle purchasers or causes the President or different officers do not like. That is no hypothetical menace. Within the run-up to the election, the President posted on Reality Social that “WHEN I WIN, these those that CHEATED shall be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Legislation … . Please beware that this authorized publicity extends to Legal professionals … .” Trump Threatens Lengthy Jail Sentences for These Who ‘Cheat’ within the Election if He Wins, PBS Information (Sept. 8, 2024). Extra lately, the President has pledged that Perkins Coie is merely among the many first of “numerous legislation companies that we’ll be going after.” Erin Mulvaney & C. Ryan Barber, Concern of Trump Has Elite Legislation Corporations in Retreat, Wall St. J. (Mar. 9, 2025) (quoting President Trump).

Certainly, because the Order at situation right here, the President has issued three extra Government Orders concentrating on Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Jenner & Block; and WilmerHale, all main legislation companies. See Exec. Order No. 14237, 90 Fed. Reg. 13,039 (Mar. 14, 2025) (concentrating on Paul Weiss); Exec. Order No. 14246, 90 Fed. Reg. 13,997 (Mar. 25, 2025) (concentrating on Jenner & Block); Exec. Order, Addressing Dangers from WilmerHale (Mar. 27, 2025). And, a kind of companies caved to the President’s strain, donating what the President described as “$40 million in professional bono authorized companies over the course of President Trump’s time period to help the Administration’s initiatives” in trade for the Order’s revocation. Ali Abbas Ahmadi, Trump Rescinds Order Concentrating on Legislation Agency After It Makes $40m Promise, BBC (Mar. 21, 2025) (quoting the President’s Reality Social submit); see additionally Exec. Order No. 14244, 90 Fed. Reg. 13,685 (Mar. 21, 2025) (revoking Government Order concentrating on Paul Weiss).

The influence of the Order reverberates far past the actual agency that’s focused. Going ahead, a lawyer or legislation agency that’s requested to characterize a shopper on a matter that’s prone to set off the President’s ire must weigh whether or not they’re keen to be positioned on the President’s goal checklist—and lose the enterprise such a placement entails. They have to additionally ask whether or not taking over a shopper of this type, and whether or not zealously advocating on that shopper’s behalf, will damage different current purchasers to whom moral duties are owed. The Government department has no constitutional authority to make use of government orders as a cudgel to beat the American authorized system into submission.

Past the influence on purchasers and legal professionals, orders of this kind threaten the integrity of the judicial course of, together with the core function of judicial overview. That anchor of our constitutional system can not perform when one particular person—no matter his place—is empowered to threaten and punish legal professionals for zealously representing their purchasers in court docket. “The Authorities of the USA has been emphatically termed a authorities of legal guidelines, and never of males.” Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 163 (1803). Let it not “stop to deserve this excessive appellation.” Id.