In a lengthy ruling last week, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of D.C. knocked down President Trump’s efforts to punish the law firm WilmerHale by stripping its lawyers of security clearances and attempting to prevent government contractors from working with it, part of a broader strategy to target the legal sector.
Leon channeled the feelings of all those who care about American political liberty and democracy in sounding bewildered and exasperated by the government’s actions, writing that Trump’s order “must be struck down in its entirety as unconstitutional. Indeed, to rule otherwise would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the Founding Fathers!” using one of my many exclamation marks in his judgement.
His overall position was simple and straightforward: to punish law firms for work that the executive considered politically disfavored would in effect be to end the justice system as we know it, and certainly to take it from a flawed but necessary arbiter of the law to yet another tool in the president’s arsenal. On this basic premise he agreed with two fellow federal judges that have already ruled against similar efforts targeting Perkins Coie and Jenner & Block.
As the firms and the judges pointed out, the president’s actions had immediate impact on their business, causing both existing and prospective clients to flock away. Still, it seems now that these consequences aren’t going to be as acute as they are for some of their competitors, who instead went the route of negotiating with and attempting to appease Trump. Most infamously, Paul Weiss was the first to strike a deal that had it pledging $40 million in free legal services to advance the president’s agenda, in addition to all manner of other concessions.
There have already been numerous reports that high-level clients have dropped the law firms that bent the knee, including Microsoft switching from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to Jenner & Block. Multiple high-level partners have recently left Paul Weiss. To that we say: good. It should be made clear to powerful law firms, which have the resources and connections to effectively fight back if they want to, that capitulation is the wrong strategy not only morally but financially and reputationally. After all, who is going to vest their trust in $1,000-an-hour lawyers that won’t go so far as to defend themselves against an aggressive federal government?
These reputations, built over decades – or, in the case of certain universities, centuries — cannot be easily recovered. Trump will not succeed in his project of knocking down the foundations of the American experiment, but everyone will remember the institutions that, for the sake of expediency, ease and next quarter’s profits, decided they could stomach turning their backs on the principles that they once claimed to hold dear.
These fights in these judgments have a higher order effect too. They are clear indications that the administration’s efforts to appear all-powerful and unstoppable are a veneer. As much as they have tested our democratic system, they have not won a total victory, and are losing steam. Every single crack in the wall makes it harder for the administration to keep up the myth that it is unbeatable and can subjugate its enemies with ease. The firms fighting back will reap the rewards.
