The Trump administration is openly targeting Biglaw firms for their representation of clients and causes adverse to the president’s political agenda. Four top firms — Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie, Paul Weiss, and Jenner & Block — have found themselves on the receiving end of Trump’s retaliatory executive orders. On top of these (likely unconstitutional) executive actions, Trump has sicced the EEOC on 20 additional Biglaw firms over their DEI policies, with the agency launching full-scale investigations into their alleged “unlawful” employment practices.
One of these legal elites, Paul Weiss, has already capitulated to Trump’s demands, kissing the presidential ring to escape the financial consequences of an executive order that could wreak havoc upon the firm. All the while, Biglaw leaders have remained silent, despite being faced with calls to stand up to the Trump administration and defend the rule of law.
Although Biglaw firms may not be willing to defend themselves for fear of facing Trump’s wrath, they thankfully have outside support from more than 50 bar associations, and now law school deans are taking up the cause.
In a joint letter issued on March 26, nearly 80 law deans from schools across the country stepped forward to condemn the Trump administration’s sanctions against Biglaw firms, being careful to note that they were expressing their own personal views, and not those of their institutions. Here’s an excerpt from that letter (available in full here):
We write to reaffirm basic principles: The government should not punish lawyers and law firms for the clients they represent, absent specific findings that such representation was illegal or unethical. Punishing lawyers for their representation and advocacy violates the First Amendment and undermines the Sixth Amendment.
We thus speak as legal educators, responsible for training the next generation of lawyers, in condemning any government efforts to punish lawyers or their firms based on the identity of their clients or for their zealous lawful and ethical advocacy.
Several of the deans who signed the letter hail from the some of the most elite law schools in the nation, including Erwin Chemerinsky of UC Berkeley, Jens David Ohlin of Cornell, Michael Waterstone of UCLA, and William Treanor of Georgetown. Thank you to all of the deans who were willing to put themselves (and quite possible their schools) on the line to defend the most basic principles of the law that we hold so dear.
There are nearly 200 law schools in the United States, and now is the time to encourage all deans to join forces with these brave law school leaders to educate the Trump administration on the error — not to mention the unconstitutionality — of their ways as part of their “special responsibility for the legal profession.”
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
