UPDATE (March 12, 2025, 4:10 p.m. ET): U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell on Wednesday blocked portions of President Donald Trump’s executive order against law firm Perkins Coie, saying the firm had met its burden for a temporary restraining order, NBC News reported.
Big law firms might not be the most sympathetic characters. But one of them says that President Donald Trump’s retaliation against it represents an “unconstitutional assault” not only on the firm, its lawyers, employees and clients, but on the legal profession and the rule of law writ large. That firm, Perkins Coie, says the legal assault comes in a Trump executive order against the firm, and a judge at a Wednesday afternoon hearing in Washington, D.C., will consider whether to block it.
Trump’s Thursday order cites the firm’s “dishonest and dangerous activity” stemming from its association with figures loathed in GOP circles: Hillary Clinton and George Soros. The order restricts the firm’s access to federal buildings and instructs federal agencies not to meet with its personnel and to terminate contracts held by firm clients.
“By punishing a law firm for its advocacy on behalf of clients whom the President disfavors, the Executive Order is designed to have a chilling effect extending far beyond Perkins Coie,” the firm wrote in a legal memo ahead of the hearing, adding that the order “presents a clear and present danger to the administration of justice in the United States.”
Trump has likewise taken action against law firm Covington & Burling for its work for Jack Smith, the former special counsel who prosecuted Trump in two of his four criminal cases.
Seeking a temporary restraining order, Perkins Coie calls Trump’s “unprecedented” order “unconstitutional from top to bottom,” writing that the Constitution “bars the President from punishing his political opponents’ law firms with a sweep of the pen.” Represented by another big firm, Williams & Connolly, Perkins Coie tells the court that Trump’s order “already has produced several harmful effects” for the firm and its clients:
Government officials already have invoked the Order to refuse to meet with Perkins Coie attorneys—including on matters having nothing to do with presidential politics or government contracting. Agencies already have asked Perkins Coie clients to disclose whether they have a relationship with the Firm. Some clients already have chosen to move work elsewhere. And other clients have expressed grave concern about the consequences of continuing to retain Perkins Coie if this illegal Order is not enjoined. Without an immediate restraining order, significant additional client relationships likely will be lost within days. The Order thus poses an imminent, ongoing threat to the Firm’s survival.
The federal judge presiding over the case is Beryl Howell, who just last week ruled against Trump in another significant case involving his executive actions. “An American President is not a king,” Howell wrote in rejecting Trump’s attempt to fire a member of the National Labor Relations Board. Similarly, in support of its claim that Trump’s order exceeds his authority, Perkins Coie’s court filing invokes the nation’s constitutional history. “The President has no freestanding authority to regulate private parties, find facts, or impose punishments,” the firm wrote to Howell, an Obama appointee. “Because the Founders feared ‘unlimited executive power’ and the ‘abuses and usurpations’ of the King of England, they divided and limited governmental authority,” it wrote. Wednesday’s hearing will reveal whether Howell likewise sees this case as an example of executive overreach — and what she’ll do about it. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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