Just three week’s after President Donald Trump‘s second inauguration, American Bar Association (ABA) President William B. Ray, citing the new administration’s “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself” wrote a letter affirming the ABA supports “holding governments, including our own, accountable under law.”
Objecting on a legal basis to many of the administration’s early actions, Ray urged the entire legal profession to defend the rule of law against an executive branch he portrayed as eager to neglect it, asking “our elected representatives to stand with us and to insist upon adherence to the rule of law and the legal processes and procedures that ensure orderly change.”
Saying the “administration cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore,” Ray told the legal profession that “we cannot afford to remain silent. We must stand up for the values we hold dear.”
Yet for all Ray’s warnings, his rallying cry did not contemplate the direct assault on law firms that was forthcoming from the Trump administration, which targeted specific firms that had worked against the president in the past through executive orders that threatened their access to government contracts, government buildings, security clearances and everything else necessary to represent their clients with business in Washington, D.C. — which is, essentially, all of them.
Read this excerpt from the devastating brief just filed by Perkins Coie, through the advocacy of Williams & Connolly, against the indefensible Trump Order punishing Perkins Coie:
“The Order is an affront to the Constitution and our adversarial system of justice. Its plain…
— Laurence Tribe
(@tribelaw) March 12, 2025
Trump’s threat forced one of the largest, most highly-regarded firms in America — Paul Weiss — to cut a deal to get out from under Trump’s thumb, with Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp meeting the President in the Oval Office and promising him everything he wanted, including an eradication of DEI policies at the firm, government oversight of the firm’s hiring and employment practices, and $40 million in pro bono work for Trump’s favored causes.
The deal, which looked like an old-fashioned shakedown to many observers, was criticized by those who contended that Karp caved under pressure — and in his surrender set a precedent for more authoritarian actions by the administration.
Karp answered his critics on Sunday, explaining to his fellow law partners and firm employees the level of the “existential crisis” that forced his hand. Karp said clearly at the start that Trump’s order “could easily have destroyed” the firm, having brought “the full weight of the government down on [Paul Weiss].”
And when Karp looked for support from his peers and colleagues in other top firms — for the kind of legal professional solidarity that ABA President Ray had called for in his letter — Karp found none, he says. Instead he found the opposite — vultures “seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients.”
As Trump proceeds to attack the rule of law and our democracy, lawyers must decide if they will stand up for the justice system — or take part in destroying it. One of America’s most prominent corporate law firms, Sullivan & Cromwell, has made its decision. John Adams would say…
— Laurence Tribe
Lacking that solidarity and support, he — and Paul Weiss — had no ground, he asserts, on which to stand in his “negotiations.” He therefore made the only decision available to him. Here’s the relevant excerpt from Karp’s explanation:
“Only several days ago, our firm faced an existential crisis. The executive order could easily have destroyed our firm. It brought the full weight of the government down on our firm, our people, and our clients. In particular, it threatened our clients with the loss of their government contracts, and the loss of access to the government, if they continued to use the firm as their lawyers. And in an obvious effort to target all of you as well as the firm, it raised the specter that the government would not hire our employees.
“We were hopeful that the legal industry would rally to our side, even though it had not done so in response to executive orders targeting other firms. We had tried to persuade other firms to come out in public support of Covington and Perkins Coie. And we waited for firms to support us in the wake of the President’s executive order targeting Paul, Weiss. Disappointingly, far from support, we learned that certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys.”