By Mike Scarcella and Sara Merken
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 500 law firms have signed a court brief denouncing Donald Trump’s targeting of Perkins Coie and other firms, expressing alarm over the Republican president’s intensifying crackdown on the legal profession.
Among the law firms signing the brief filed on Friday to Washington-based U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell were Arnold & Porter, Davis Wright Tremaine and Fenwick & West. The firms signed the brief at the risk of drawing the ire of Trump and his administration, and many of the largest one did not join.
“Although we do not take this step lightly, our abiding commitment to preserving the integrity of the American legal system leaves us no choice but to join together,” the brief said.
The filing backed a lawsuit that Perkins Coie, a firm founded in Seattle, filed on March 11 to block Trump’s executive order issued against the firm over its diversity policies and its prior legal work for the campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton, his opponent in the 2016 presidential election.
Howell, presiding over the case, last month blocked provisions of Trump’s order against Perkins Coie, saying it would undermine “the very foundations of our legal system” if it were allowed to stand.
The judge concluded that the directive was likely unlawful, violating constitutional protections for free speech and due process, and called Trump’s order an “extreme, dangerous and unprecedented” effort to intimidate law firms and attorneys.
Trump to date has signed executive orders targeting five firms, with three of them – Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and Jenner & Block – suing Trump in response. Judges have issued orders that blocked key provisions of Trump’s orders against those three firms. One firm targeted in a directive, Paul Weiss, reached a deal with the president that led to the directive being rescinded. The firm Covington & Burling has not sued to challenge the order targeting it.
Three other firms – Milbank, Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Skadden Arps – have come to agreements with Trump without being hit with an order against them.
Trump has targeted law firms that have represented clients who have challenged his policies in court, have employed lawyers who have been involved in prosecutorial investigations against Trump at the federal and state levels or represent people who previously have investigated him. His orders also have faulted the firms for workplace diversity policies. Some conservatives have argued that such policies discriminate against white people and certain others.
Trump’s orders targeting Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and Jenner & Block sought to cancel federal contracts held by their clients and to restrict access by their lawyers to federal buildings and officials. The directive targeting Covington & Burling was narrower, intended to strip security clearances from a pair of attorneys at the firm who were involved in a Justice Department Trump investigation.
The White House has defended Trump’s directives as lawful acts of presidential power.
Law professors, small law firms, attorney bar associations and thousands of lawyers in recent weeks have condemned Trump’s targeting of major law firms.
The “friend of the court” brief had been circulated for weeks and promoted by some lawyers on social media platforms, amid calls for law firms and attorneys to denounce the Trump’s use of executive orders to punish his perceived enemies in the legal profession.
The four firms that have reached deals with Trump each pledged tens of millions of dollars in free legal services to work on mutually agreed projects with the White House. The firms in public statements said their deals were in line with their principles, including a commitment to remain politically independent.
In Perkins Coie’s lawsuit, Howell at a hearing on March 12 said Trump’s directive against that firm “casts a chilling harm of blizzard proportions across the entire legal profession.”
“The executive order is already chilling lawyers’ advocacy on behalf of clients, as law firms are now fearful of taking on a president who hasn’t shied away from punishing his enemies,” Howell said at the hearing.
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; editing by Will Dunham and Amy Stevens)
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