President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms have impacted the legal world in obvious ways: The firms named in the orders are undoubtedly affected, and the impact is clear, too, on the firms that have caved and cut deals with him.
But one of the latest signs that Trump’s vengeance affects the entire legal system — and the nation — is in a new report highlighting a firm that wasn’t targeted in an executive order and didn’t pre-emptively cut a deal.
Citing five people familiar with the matter, The New York Times reported that the big law firm Gibson Dunn “was afraid of incurring Mr. Trump’s wrath if the firm was associated publicly with a lawsuit that sought to restore legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children.” (Neither MSNBC nor NBC News has independently confirmed the report.)
The Times observed that the firm’s “wariness about the recent immigration lawsuit shows that even firms that have not been targeted directly by Mr. Trump are declining to participate in legal work that challenges his agenda.”
The report, which notes that Gibson Dunn isn’t the only big firm shying away from immigration litigation, comes as unlawful aspects of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda face headwinds in court. While much important work in this space is done by public interest groups, those groups also partner with private firms. So, limiting the pool of private lawyers who litigate against unlawful aspects of Trump’s agenda could be seen as part of the agenda itself. At the very least, it’s a byproduct of Trump’s stated desire for vengeance against firms and his willingness to follow through with it.
Of course, the firms that are fighting back in court have been successful so far. That’s due, in part, to the blatantly retaliatory nature of the president’s executive orders. In a recent ruling against one of the orders, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote: “No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’” This latest report on the matter shows that some otherwise powerful firms are killing themselves, professionally speaking — perhaps in the hope of saving themselves, professionally speaking. But whatever their strategy, firms that cave to or shy away from suing this administration are effectively working for 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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