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Law Firms

‘Is this a throwback to the McCarthy era?’ Judges consider injunction bids by firms targeted in Trump orders

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 24, 2025, 10:57 am CDT

Two federal judges sharply questioned a government lawyer Wednesday as they considered bids by Perkins Coie and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr to permanently enjoin executive orders that target them and their clients.

“Is this a throwback to the McCarthy era, the Red Scare era?” asked U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell of Washington, D.C., in the Perkins Coie case. Howell was questioning Department of Justice lawyer Richard Lawson, according to Law360.

Publications with coverage, in addition to Law360, include the New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg Law and Law.com (here and here).

Lawson argued for the government in the cases before Howell and U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, both of whom are located in the District of Columbia.

Perkins Coie and WilmerHale are among four law firms that filed lawsuits to challenge the executive orders that typically seek the suspension of lawyers’ security clearances; restrict their access to government buildings; and call for termination of government contracts for which the firms were hired to provide services, including clients’ government contracts.

Targeted firms have represented clients and worked on causes opposed by President Donald Trump.

Howell asked the “throwback” question after noting a declaration from a former Department of Defense official who oversaw security clearances. He said a blanket suspension of clearances, as called for in the executive orders, “harkens back to the repudiated and discredited programs,” including the Red Scare.

Arguing for Perkins Coie, Dane H. Butswinkas, a partner at Williams & Connolly, said Trump’s actions stem from “the playbook of authoritarianism,” according to Bloomberg Law.

“This is exactly the kind of conduct the Constitution forbids,” Butswinkas said.

Butswinkas said the executive orders targeted lawyers who are no longer with the firms, according to Law.com.

“It sounds more like national insecurity than national security,” he said.

In the hearing before Leon, Lawson said the orders are a valid exercise of executive function rather than punishments for First Amendment activities.

Leon questioned that assertion, Law360 reports.

“It’s pretty clear it’s retaliation,” Leon said, “at least to this court.”

Arguing for WilmerHale, Paul D. Clement of Clement & Murphy said the executive orders “are a direct and lethal threat to an independent bar,” according to Law360.

“The signal it sends to the whole bar is, ‘Watch out,’” Clement said.

Nine firms have reached deals with Trump to avoid executive orders. The deals typically provide that the firms will provide pro bono services for projects mutually supported by the firms and Trump. Amounts of pro bono pledged range from $40 million to $125 million.

Above the Law has created a list of firm actions in response to the Trump administration in its “BigLaw Spine Index.”

See also:

Revoking security clearances includes due process, which is not being followed, says whistleblower lawyer

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3. Did 9 firms making deals with Trump violate…

Law Firms

Did 9 firms making deals with Trump violate bribery, anti-fraud laws? Democratic letters seek answers

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 24, 2025, 2:26 pm CDT

Sixteen Democratic lawmakers have sent letters to nine law firms that ask them to disavow deals with President Donald Trump and to answer questions about their legality.

Among the 16 Democrats are two lawmakers leading the effort: U.S. Rep. Dave Min of California and U.S. Rep. April McClain Delaney of Maryland, who are both lawyers, according to an April 24 press release and ABC News.

HuffPost reporter Jennifer Bendery posted a link to the documents on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The nine firms getting the letters are Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Milbank; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Kirkland & Ellis; A&O Shearman; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Latham & Watkins; and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

Firms making the deals pledged to devote millions of dollars in pro bono hours to issues supported by the firms and Trump. Their agreements allowed them to avoid executive orders that, among other things, call for the suspension of lawyers’ security clearances and imperil their clients’ government contracts.

According to the letters, continued performance under the agreements may be unenforceable under contracts law, would have negative effects on the legal system, could expose the firms to civil and criminal liability, and creates potential ethics violations with respect to conflicts of interest and limits on future law practice.

Agreements of this kind “signal acquiescence to an abuse of federal power, raising serious questions about how or whether your firm would represent clients or take on matters that might be seen as antagonistic to President Trump or his agenda,” the letters said.

The letters asked firms to explain whether the deals open themselves up to liability for:

  • Violating federal bribery laws by offering something of value to influence official acts.

  • Aiding and abetting violations of the Hobbs Act, which makes it a crime to affect commerce by extortion.

  • Violating federal anti-fraud laws that prohibit schemes to defraud the public of the honest services of public officials.

  • Violating the federal law that prohibits participation in a racketeering enterprise.

  • Violating state statutes that ban providing public servants with benefits to influence actions.

The April 24 letters follow inquiries sent to firms from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who are both Democrats, according to Reuters and an April 22 press release.

The first batch of letters by Blumenthal and Raskin sought more information on attempts made to poach lawyers and clients from one of the targeted firms and asked six firms to retain records pertaining to the executive orders. A second group of letters asked five firms for more information while asserting that their “capitulation” allowed Trump to suppress their speech.

“Your agreement makes you complicit in efforts to undermine the rule of law and to turn private attorneys into President Trump’s personal law firm, ready to do whatever he decides,” Blumenthal and Raskin wrote.

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3. 59 partners leave A&O Shearman outside Asia…

Layoffs

59 partners leave A&O Shearman outside Asia since decision to trim 10% of equity partnership

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 28, 2025, 3:19 pm CDT

Twenty-five U.S. partners are among the 59 partners who left A&O Shearman since its decision last year to trim 10% of its global equity partnership, according to a count by Law.com.

The count does not include 15 partners who left A&O Shearman in Asia, as previously reported by Law.com. Butit does include partners who left in the United States, London, Europe, Africa and Australia.

A&O Shearman said last year the partner cuts were “a difficult but necessary step forward” following the merger between Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling. About 45 partners who left joined other law firms.

A&O Shearman said it currently has around 800 partners worldwide, which is about the same number that it had when it announced the cuts. It is unclear why the current number isn’t lower, according to Law.com.

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3. Firm failed to honor exit package after retaliating…

Law Firms

Firm failed to honor exit package after retaliating for bias complaint, former BigLaw partner alleges

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 29, 2025, 10:53 am CDT

A former salaried partner at Womble Bond Dickinson has filed a lawsuit alleging that the law firm cut her pay by half and offered her an exit package—which it didn’t honor—after she complained about a hostile work environment.

The April 25 suit filed by Wilka Toppins alleges race and gender discrimination, retaliation, misrepresentation and breach of contract.

Law360 has a story on the suit, filed in Harris County, Texas.

Toppins, who is Hispanic, said she accomplished “a great deal of origination and a large book of business” after she began work at the firm’s Houston office in November 2021, despite receiving inadequate support.

For a majority of her time at the firm, Toppins “had no associate help and no secretarial help,” the suit said. She was also subjected to a “very hostile work environment” by firm members and support staff in her corporate and securities practice group, according to the suit.

“The disparity in treatment included not providing sufficient support, attempting to take away plaintiff’s immigration clients and business, speaking to plaintiff in a derogatory and condescending manner, and failing to fulfill basic promises to her,” the suit said.

Toppins was the only Hispanic female in the entire firm at the time of her hiring, according to the suit.

After Toppins complained, the firm said it would investigate. Eventually, Toppins was told that the firm found that she was subjected to a hostile work environment, but it was not because she was a member of a protected class.

A pattern of retaliation followed, the suit said. Toppins’ pay was cut from $350,000 to $175,000, and she was told that if she did not like the new salary, the firm would be happy to “transition her off,” according to the suit.

After Toppins sought restoration of her pay, Womble Bond Dickinson offered her an exit package consisting of a 10% referral agreement, a contract position for immigration work and a severance agreement. Relying on the agreement, Toppins resigned in January 2024.

The firm then failed to honor the agreement under the exit package, the suit said.

A spokesperson for Womble Bond Dickinson did not immediately respond to the ABA Journal’s request for comment made in an email and a voicemail.

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3. Executive orders against firms threaten rule…

Law Firms

Executive orders against firms threaten rule of law, Susman Godfrey says in suit against Trump administration

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 14, 2025, 12:39 pm CDT

Updated: Susman Godfrey has alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday that President Donald Trump’s campaign of executive orders targeting the law firm and other well-known firms is an unconstitutional threat to the rule of law.

“The president is abusing the powers of his office to wield the might of the executive branch in retaliation against organizations and people that he dislikes. Nothing in our Constitution or laws grants a president such power,” according to the April 11 suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “If a president can with impunity seek to destroy a law firm because of the clients it represents, then the rule of law itself is in grave danger.”

If the executive orders against Susman Godfrey and other firms are allowed to stand, future presidents will face no constraint when they retaliate against different perceived enemies, the suit says.

“Put simply, this could be any of us,” the suit says.

Law360, Reuters and Bloomberg Law are among the publications with coverage.

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan of Washington, D.C., granted a temporary restraining order Tuesday to block sections of the executive order denying access to government property and calling for an end to government contracts in which the firm provides services.

“The executive order is based on a personal vendetta against a particular firm,” AliKhan said during the hearing, according to a report by Reuters. “And, frankly, I think the framers of our Constitution would view it as a shocking abuse of power.”

Publications covering the ruling, in addition to Reuters, include Law.com and Law360.

Three other firms that sued over executive orders have also obtained TROs.

Susman Godfrey, a firm with 235 attorneys, describes itself as “the nation’s foremost trial firm” in the suit, Susman Godfrey v. Executive Office of the President. Susman Godfrey is represented in the suit by a legal team at Munger, Tolles & Olson headed by Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who was the U.S. solicitor general in the Obama administration and also was a former Jenner & Block partner.

The April 9 executive order targeting Susman Godfrey alleged that the firm “spearheads efforts to weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections.” Susman Godfrey is one of the firms that filed a defamation suit against Fox News for false claims that voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems were used to help former President Joe Biden win the 2020 election. The case settled for $787.5 million.

The executive order against Susman Godfrey seeks the suspension of security clearances issued to any of the firm’s lawyers; restricts access to government buildings for firm employees; bans the government from providing resources to Susman Godfrey, including compartmentalized information facilities; bans government hiring of Susman Godfrey employees; and calls for termination of government contracts for which Susman Godfrey has been hired to provide services, including clients’ government contracts.

Trump’s executive order “effectively seeks to create a new condition of government contracting—that contractors not work with Susman Godfrey,” the suit says.

That is an unconstitutional condition that interferes with a First Amendment right to associate and a due process right to counsel under the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, according to the suit, which also cites other alleged constitutional violations.

Susman Godfrey is the fourth firm to sue over executive orders. The others are Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, Jenner & Block, and Perkins Coie.

Firms that have reached agreements with Trump to avoid executive orders are Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Milbank; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Kirkland & Ellis; A&O Shearman; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Latham & Watkins; and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

The deals typically provide that the firms will provide pro bono services for projects mutually supported by the firms and Trump. Amounts of pro bono pledged range from $40 million to $125 million.

See also:

Which firms, legal groups, law profs signed briefs supporting Perkins Coie in challenge to punitive Trump order?

Updated April 16 at 8:45 a.m. to include information on the temporary restraining order.

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3. Lawyers will seek stipulated dismissal of…

Law Firms

Lawyers will seek stipulated dismissal of fired associate’s bias suit against Kirkland & Ellis

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 14, 2025, 2:35 pm CDT

A fired associate and Kirkland & Ellis plan to ask a court to toss the lawyer’s federal lawsuit against the law firm alleging gender bias and retaliation, according to an April 8 docket entry.

The former associate, Zoya Kovalenko, had alleged in an October 2022 suit that male associates in the intellectual property litigation group at Kirkland & Ellis were treated better and paid more money than women. Kovalenko claimed that she was fired in September 2021 after complaining about disparate treatment and was then falsely told that poor performance was the reason that she was let go.

U.S. District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. of the Northern District of California ruled in September 2024 that Kovalenko could sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress, retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, violation of California anti-discrimination law and violation of the Equal Pay Act. But Gilliam tossed a defamation claim based on a performance review.

Law360 reported earlier this month on Kovalenko’s plan to seek a stipulated dismissal, revealed in a case management statement.

Kovalenko did not immediately respond to an ABA Journal email seeking comment.

Kirkland & Ellis is represented by Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe lawyers, who did not immediately reply to the Journal’s email request for comment.

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3. This law firm is ranked No. 1 after posting…

Law Firms

This law firm is ranked No. 1 after posting $8.8B in gross revenue; which other firms are ‘category leaders’?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 16, 2025, 9:52 am CDT

Kirkland & Ellis is once again ranked No. 1 for gross revenue in 2024, according to the American Lawyer’s Am Law 100.

Kirkland & Ellis had $8.8 billion in gross revenue, “almost jumping straight into $9 billion territory,” Law.com reports in a story that is one of several reports on the findings.

Other “category leaders” are Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which had the highest revenue per lawyer, at $4.47 million, and Kirkland & Ellis, which had the highest profits per equity partner, at $9.25 million.

Law firms “crushed it” based on financial performance in 2024, the article reports. The nation’s 100 top-grossing firms increased revenue by 13.3% last year, increased lawyer head count by 7.7%, and increased revenue per lawyer by 5.2%.

While revenue increased an average of 13.3% for the top 100 firms, only 20 firms gained that amount or more, according to firm consultants Bruce MacEwan and Janet Stanton, who spoke with Law.com. The other 80 were below that level. MacEwan is the president of Adam Smith Esq., and Stanton is a partner in the organization.

The top five firms for gross revenue are:

1. Kirkland & Ellis, $8.8 billion, up about 22% from 2023

2. Latham & Watkins, $7 billion, up about 23% from 2023

3. DLA Piper, $4.2 billion, up nearly 11% from 2023

4. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, $3.6 billion, up about 12% from 2023

5. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, $3.5 billion, up nearly 16% from 2023

The top firms for revenue per lawyer are:

1. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, $4.47 million

2. Susman Godfrey, $2.38 million

3. Sullivan & Cromwell, $2.33 million

4. Ropes & Gray, $2.33 million

5. Kirkland & Ellis, $2.29 million

The top firms for profits per equity partner are:

1. Kirkland & Ellis, $9.25 million

2. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, $9.03 million

3. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, $8.64 million

4. Davis Polk & Wardwell, $7.8 million

5. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, $7.66 million

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3. Resignations multiply at BigLaw firms that…

Careers

Resignations multiply at BigLaw firms that made deals with Trump

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 16, 2025, 12:04 pm CDT

Associate Rachel Cohen may have been the first lawyer to resign from a law firm because she disagreed with its response to President Donald Trump’s punitive executive orders, but she isn’t the last.

Cohen is one of at least nine lawyers who have left six out of nine firms that reached deals with Trump, according to reporting on resignations by Law.com, the New York Times, Reuters (here and here) and Above the Law.

Cohen was a finance associate in the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. She left the firm after it refused her call to support Perkins Coie in its lawsuit challenging an executive order that, among other things, barred its lawyers from government buildings and imperiled its representation of government contractors.

Then when Skadden reached an agreement with Trump to avoid becoming a target, two more associates left.

These nine firms have reached agreements to avoid executive orders similar to the one against Perkins Coie: Skadden; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Milbank; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Kirkland & Ellis; A&O Shearman; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Latham & Watkins; and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

The deals call for firms to provide pro bono legal services to projects supported by the firms and Trump. The amounts pledged range from $40 million to $125 million.

According to the articles, lawyers who left are:

  • Rachel Cohen, who left Skadden (ABAJournal.com, Law.com)

  • Brenna Trout Frey, who left Skadden (ABAJournal.com, Above the Law, Law.com)

  • Thomas Sipp, who left Skadden (ABAJournal.com, Above the Law, the New York Times, Law.com)

  • Sam Wong, who left Latham (Law.com, Reuters)

  • Siunik Moradian, who left Simpson Thacher (Law.com, Bloomberg Law, Above the Law, Reuters)

  • Jacqui Pittman, who left Kirkland (Law.com)

  • Joseph Baio, who left Willkie (Law.com, Reuters)

  • Andrew Silberstein, who left Willkie (Law.com, Reuters)

  • Steven Banks, who left Paul Weiss, where he was the pro bono practice leader. He said he has wanted to leave since the November election to wage a fight for “the things that I have believed in”. He did not specifically mention the firm’s deal with Trump. (Law.com, the New York Times)

The executive orders issued against firms typically seek the suspension of security clearances for their lawyers; restrict access to government buildings by their employees; ban government hiring of firm employees; require government contractors to disclose whether they do business with the firms; and call for termination of government contracts for which firms were hired to provide services, including clients’ government contracts.

In a message to employees, Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp said the firm reached an agreement with Trump to avoid an “existential crisis” that could have destroyed the firm. Even if it mounted a successful legal challenge, Karp said, its clients would still perceive the firm as “persona non grata with the administration.”

Four firms have sued over executive orders issued against them. They are Perkins Coie, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, Jenner & Block, and Susman Godfrey. All have obtained temporary restraining orders blocking parts of the executive orders.

Perkins Coie lost the vice chair of its government contracts practice after the firm sued. That lawyer, Alexander Canizares, is departing to become co-leader of the government contracts practice at Vinson & Elkins. Canizares told Reuters that he began talking to Vinson & Elkins “quite a while ago.”

Above the Law has published a “BigLaw Spine Index” that lists how firms have responded to the Trump administration.

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3. Law students sue EEOC over investigative…

Law Students

Law students sue EEOC over investigative letters sent to 20 BigLaw firms

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 17, 2025, 9:43 am CDT

Three law students have filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to order the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to withdraw investigative letters sent to 20 BigLaw firms and to return and delete information that it gathered from them.

The April 15 suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the EEOC acted beyond its authority when it demanded that law firms turn over sensitive personal information about their applicants and employees dating back six to 10 years.

The law students, who filed the suit using pseudonyms, are represented by Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal services organization, according to a April 15 press release.

Law.com and Reuters have coverage.

Reuters called the suit “the latest pushback against President Donald Trump’s efforts to rein in major law firms and eradicate workplace diversity, equity and inclusion programs.”

The plaintiffs are three law students who either applied to or worked at one of more of the 20 targeted firms. Information sought from the firms includes “sensitive personal information about plaintiffs and their employment history: their name, sex, race, contact information, academic performance and compensation,” the suit says.

Now that the EEOC and Andrea Lucas, the acting EEOC chair, have demanded the information, the suit says, the plaintiffs “are deeply worried that their data will be divulged, and that they may be targeted as a result.”

The law creating the EEOC provides that an investigation can be conducted only after a specific charge has been filed, the suit says. The law also “imposed strict confidentiality requirements on those charges and investigations, as well as on efforts to obtain voluntary compliance,” according to the suit.

Those requirements have not been met, according to the allegations.

The EEOC sought the information in a March 17 letter and announced the action in a press release. The targeted firms are: Perkins Coie; Cooley; Reed Smith; A&O Shearman; Debevoise & Plimpton; Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; Goodwin Procter; Hogan Lovells; Kirkland & Ellis; Latham & Watkins; McDermott Will & Emery; Milbank; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; Morrison & Foerster; Ropes & Gray; Sidley Austin; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; White & Case; and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

Six of the targeted firms have since reached deals with Trump to avoid becoming a target of punitive executive orders that would withdraw their lawyers’ security clearances and could imperil their representation of government contractors.

According to Law.com, those six firms are: Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, A&O Shearman, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Milbank and Skadden. It’s unclear whether agreements reached with Skadden and Milbank resolve the EEOC request. The other four firms agreed to compliance monitoring as part of those deals, but it’s not known if they agreed to provide the requested information.

See also:

EEOC chair requested ‘extensive’ info from law firms on DEI practices and hiring; did it cross a line?

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3. Which firms, legal groups, law profs signed…

Law Firms

Which firms, legal groups, law profs signed briefs supporting Perkins Coie in challenge to punitive Trump order?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 8, 2025, 8:52 am CDT

Amicus briefs supporting Perkins Coie are piling up in its challenge to a punitive order against the law firm signed by President Donald Trump.

The briefs have been filed by more than 500 firms, more than 360 law professors, nearly 350 former judges and a “cross-ideological group” that includes the American Civil Liberties Union and the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest firm, report Law.com (here and here); Bloomberg Law; Reuters (here and here); Law360; and press releases by Law Forward, a nonprofit organization, and the ACLU.

The firm brief is mostly signed by smaller and midsize firms. According to Law.com, larger and well-known firms that signed are:

  • Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer

  • Covington & Burling

  • Crowell & Moring

  • Davis Wright Tremaine

  • Fenwick & West

  • Foley Hoag

  • Freshfields US

  • Hanson Bridgett

  • Jenner & Block

  • Manatt, Phelps & Phillips

  • Munger, Tolles & Olson

  • Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler

  • Stoel Rives

  • Susman Godfrey

  • Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr

Perkins Coie sued after Trump issued an executive order that suspended Perkins Coie’s security clearance, limited access to federal buildings by its lawyers, blocked government hiring of firm employees, and required federal agencies to take steps to terminate contracts with the firms and their clients—if the firm provided services in connection with the client contract.

WilmerHale and Jenner & Block also sued after they were targeted with executive orders. Covington & Burling was also targeted in a more limited executive order; it has not filed suit.

As of April 3, four other firms reached deals with Trump to avoid punitive measures. The deals included pledges of pro bono support on issues supported by Trump and the firms.

A Perkins Coie spokesperson told Reuters that the firm was grateful to the firms that signed the amicus brief “in our challenge to the unconstitutional executive order and the threat it poses to the rule of law.”

Above the Law is compiling firms’ reactions to actions by the Trump administration in its “BigLaw Spine Index.” Law.com has published a timeline of the executive orders and firms’ response to them.

The legal advocacy groups that signed the ACLU brief are:

  • The ACLU

  • The ACLU of the District of Columbia

  • The Cato Institute

  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation

  • The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

  • The Institute for Justice

  • The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University

  • The National Coalition Against Censorship

  • The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press

  • The Rutherford Institute

  • The Society for the Rule of Law Institute

Judges who signed an amicus brief include retired state supreme court and appellate justices and former federal judges. Among them are:

  • Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Richmond, Virginia

  • Retired Judge Diana Gribbon Motz of the 4th Circuit at Richmond, Virginia

  • Retired Judge Kathleen M. O’Malley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

  • Retired Judge Thomas I. Vanaskie of the 3rd Circuit at Philadelphia

  • Retired U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York

Law professors who signed the professor brief are from law schools that include Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, Stanford Law School, the University of California, the Georgetown University Law Center, the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, Cornell Law School, the New York University School of Law, the University of Chicago Law School, Columbia Law School and the University of Michigan Law School.

Professors who signed the brief include Michael C. Dorf of Cornell Law School, Mark A. Lemley of Stanford Law School, Owen Fiss of Yale Law School, Harold Hongju Koh of Yale Law School, Leah Litman of the University of Michigan Law School, Eugene Volokh of the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law and Pamela S. Karlan of Stanford Law School.

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