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Law Firms

Which BigLaw firms and big-name lawyers are involved in suits against Trump administration?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 26, 2025, 9:40 am CST

Several BigLaw firms and at least three U.S. Supreme Court practitioners are representing plaintiffs suing the Trump administration.

Well-known attorneys involved in the litigation include Neal Katyal, who recently joined Milbank from Hogan Lovells; Seth Waxman of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr; and Paul Clement, who left Kirkland & Ellis to form Clement & Murphy, report Law.com and Reuters.

The three lawyers have significant Supreme court experience. Waxman and Clement are former U.S. solicitors general, while Katyal was an acting solicitor general.

Smaller law firms and legal organizations are also involved in the litigation, including the American Civil Liberties Union, its foundation and its affiliates; Lambda Legal; Democracy Forward; Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington; the National Security Counselors firm; Lawyers for Civil Rights; and immigrant rights groups. Democratic state attorneys general are also filing legal challenges.

According to Law.com and Reuters, these BigLaw firms are involved in lawsuits:

  • Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, representing fired inspectors general. (Law.com)

  • Hogan Lovells, seeking to block executive orders to end federal funding for gender-affirming medical care. (Law.com)

  • Jenner & Block, also seeking to block the orders on gender-affirming care and cuts to medical research funding. (Law.com, Reuters)

  • Ropes & Gray, also seeking to block cuts to medical research funding. (Law.com)

  • Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, representing the Amica Center for Immigrants Rights and others seeking to block funding cuts for immigrant legal services. (Law.com)

  • Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, representing the ABA and other groups challenging a freeze on foreign assistance funding. The firm also sued over the order ending birthright citizenship. (Law.com, ABAJournal.com, Reuters)

  • Perkins Coie, representing transgender service members challenging an order restricting military service. (Law.com, Reuters)

  • Milbank, representing the chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board in a suit over her attempted ouster. (Reuters)

Just Security and the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse are tracking legal challenges to Trump administration actions.

See also:

Which law firms are expected to win influence in Trump administration?

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3. Online ‘gangsta rap’ discussion wasn’t real…

Law Firms

Online ‘gangsta rap’ discussion wasn’t real reason for McCarter associate’s firing, suit alleges

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 7, 2025, 12:30 pm CST

A former McCarter & English staff associate alleges that the law firm subjected him to a hostile workplace based on his status as a military combat veteran and fired him on the pretext of violating the firm’s social media policy.

Lawyer William D. Brown Jr., a former Navy SEAL who served in the Iraq War, said he was actually fired for complaints about unequal pay and his push to include veterans in the firm’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Law.com has coverage of the Dec. 24 lawsuit (previewed here), filed in Essex County, New Jersey, superior court.

Brown said he made $100,000 per year in 2023 after six years at the firm as a career bankruptcy associate, compared to $170,000 in base pay for newly hired regular associates. His bankruptcy work was trimmed after a new chairman took over, and he was assigned to child sexual-abuse defense work despite his distaste for the matters, the suit says.

The LinkedIn post that purportedly led to his firing discussed the glorification of violence and drugs in “gangsta rap” lyrics and “radical culture within the Islamic world” that glorifies violence, Law.com previously reported. The firm said the post promoted negative stereotypes of Muslim and Black Americans.

Brown claimed that there were separate standards of conduct at McCarter & English in its interaction with employees “who adhered to political left orthodoxy” and those “who happened to not endorse the same leftist worldview.”

Brown cited an incident in which a tax partner asked him how many people he had killed. The partner later apologized. But the question led Brown to think that rather being perceived as an honorable person who served his nation, he was “feared, loathed and discounted as a mere ‘killer,’” the suit says.

Brown also said a partner asked him “if he was mentally sound” after he asserted on LinkedIn that veterans are paid less than others for substantially the same work and denied opportunities when they speak up for themselves.

A McCarter & English spokesperson provided a statement to Law.com.

“As always with an initial complaint, it tells one side of the story,” the statement said. “Once the full history is brought to light, we are confident we will be fully vindicated. We intend to defend this case against the firm and clear the names of those individuals referenced within the complaint.”

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3. Lawyer awarded $3.3M after crashing snowmobile…

Verdicts & Settlements

Lawyer awarded $3.3M after crashing snowmobile into negligently parked Army helicopter

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 26, 2024, 2:28 pm CDT

A federal judge in Massachusetts has awarded $3.3 million in damages to a lawyer for injuries suffered when he crashed his snowmobile into a camouflaged U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter parked on a snowmobile trail at dusk.

U.S. District Judge Mark G. Mastroianni of the District of Massachusetts awarded damages to Massachusetts lawyer Jeffrey Smith in a Sept. 23 decision following a bench trial.

The Associated Press and Fox News have coverage.

Mastroianni found that the government was 60% responsible for the 2019 incident because it failed “to take any steps to protect against the obvious risk” that it created from parking the helicopter in the spot. Smith was 40% responsible for speeding and wearing tinted goggles at night, the judge said.

Mastroianni came up with the $3.3 million figure after reducing damages to account for Smith’s comparative negligence and to account for a settlement reached with the landowner. The judge also awarded $100,000 to Smith’s son and $150,000 to his minor daughter.

Smith “suffered life-changing injuries” from the crash in Worthington, Massachusetts, Mastroianni said. He had multiple broken bones, a puncture to his left lung, herniated discs and neurological damage. A neurosurgeon had testified that Smith’s nerves had been “pulled clean out of the spinal cord itself,” making breathing difficult and essentially robbing him of the use of his left arm.

Smith’s law practice suffered because of limited stamina and pain. His net earnings were $134,394 in 2018, before the incident. In 2022, after the incident, he had a net loss of $5,671 because of increased paralegal hours.

The helicopter crew had flown from New York to Worthington for night training before deployment to Afghanistan. The chief warrant officer chose the location to replicate what the crew would see in Afghanistan. He also chose the location so that he could meet and socialize with a friend who lived in the town.

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3. Lawyer seeks damages after his snowmobile…

Trials & Litigation

Lawyer seeks damages after his snowmobile crashes into Black Hawk helicopter

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 6, 2024, 10:01 am CST

A Massachusetts lawyer is awaiting a judge’s decision following a bench trial in his $9.5 million lawsuit alleging that the military was negligent for leaving a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter on a snowmobile route at dusk.

Jeffrey Smith of Massachusetts, a 43-year-old “small-town real estate lawyer” at the time of the March 2019 crash, said the unlit camouflaged helicopter was on an abandoned air strip in Worthington, Massachusetts, MassLive.com reports.

Smith’s injuries included 12 broken ribs and a punctured lung. He has undergone several surgeries, and he has lost most of the feeling on his left side, according to his lawyers.

“The last five years, there’s been surgery, recovery, surgery, recovery,” Smith told the Associated Press.

He works only part time, and he can’t use his left arm since the crash, he said.

Smith also sued the owner of the airfield, who settled for an undisclosed amount.

The government has argued that it can’t be sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act because the training crew’s conduct was policy-related. U.S. District Judge Mark G. Mastroianni of the District of Massachusetts rejected the government’s argument, made in a motion for summary judgment, in July 2022.

At the January bench trial, the government argued that Smith was wearing tinted goggles after dusk, and he told investigators that he was aware that a helicopter was in the area. Smith’s estimated speed was 65 miles per hour, and his blood alcohol level was slightly below the legal limit, they argued.

In Smith’s proposed findings of fact, he said his speed was was between 26 miles per hour to 39 miles per hour, as determined by his expert. Before the accident, he had consumed two beers, two Adderall and one Suboxone that had been prescribed by his doctor. A witness said he was not intoxicated.

“When Mr. Smith finally was able to see the helicopter, it was too late,” according to the proposed findings of fact.