Legal Profession and Executive Power

The Justice Department has asked the D.C.-based federal appeals court to overturn four lower-court rulings that struck down President Trump’s executive orders aimed at major firms Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey, after briefly signaling earlier in the week that it would abandon those appeals. The orders, issued last year, sought to punish the firms over their hiring choices, prior work on matters such as the Mueller Russia investigation, and their diversity programs by forcing contractors to disclose ties to them, limiting their access to federal buildings and officials, and suspending their employees’ security clearances. Federal judges had blocked the measures in sharp terms, calling one order "cringe-worthy" and another a "screed," and the firms argue they were being unconstitutionally penalized for representing clients and diverging from the administration. In its new brief, DOJ claims the directives were "well within the Presidential prerogative," insisting courts cannot dictate what the president may say, how he handles clearances, or whether agencies scrutinize alleged racial discrimination in employment practices, and framing the dispute as lower courts "encroaching on the constitutional power of the President." The White House had already rescinded a similar order against Paul Weiss after it agreed to provide $40 million in pro bono work on causes Trump supports, a deal and other preemptive concessions by firms that critics online are citing as evidence of how aggressively the administration has tried to use executive power to pressure the legal profession.