Legal Organizations Re-File Amicus Brief in Support of Targeted Law Firms

WASHINGTON — Today, a cross-partisan coalition of public interest groups filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to strike down the illegal executive orders targeting four specific law firms: Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey, and WilmerHale.

Last year, the president issued a series of directives and executive orders intended to tamp down on lawsuits against his administration’s policies. In response, the ACLU and the same cross-ideological group filed amicus briefs asking courts to strike down the orders. Every court that reviewed the executive orders in the last year has held that they violated the Constitution.

Although the government briefly entertained the notion of dismissing its appeal in these cases, it ultimately decided to appeal.

“These executive orders are indefensible,” said Brian Hauss, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. “From John Adams’ defense of the redcoats in the Boston Massacre prosecution to Floyd Abrams’ advocacy for a newspaper’s right to publish the Pentagon Papers, a lawyer’s willingness to challenge the government has been the bedrock of our legal system. By severely punishing law firms that took on clients or causes opposed to the administration, the executive orders unconstitutionally sought to cow the bar as a whole into submission.”

These executive orders imposed government punishment on specific firms in direct retaliation for their First Amendment protected work on lawsuits the administration disfavored, including challenges to his voting, immigration, and LGBTQ policies. Some executive orders targeted law firms specifically for their employment of lawyers whom President Trump viewed as his political or legal adversaries, such as Robert Mueller.

"The right to representation is foundational to how our legal system works," said Art Spitzer, senior counsel at the ACLU of the District of Columbia. "No one in government, including the president, can punish lawyers simply because they don't like the positions they've taken in court. Our constitutional rights would be eviscerated if the government had that power."