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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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3. Nonprofits that challenged mass firings didn’t…

U.S. Supreme Court

Nonprofits that challenged mass firings didn’t have standing, Supreme Court says while staying rehiring order

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 8, 2025, 1:31 pm CDT

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed a federal judge’s preliminary injunction that required the federal government to rehire as many as 16,000 fired probationary employees.

In its April 8 order, the Supreme Court said the injunction entered by Senior U.S. District Judge William H. Alsup of the Northern District of California was based solely on claims by nine nonprofit plaintiffs. But those groups did not have standing, the Supreme Court said.

The injunction was not based on claims by other plaintiffs in the lawsuit before Alsup. Alsup didn’t rule on claims by the labor union plaintiffs because he found that he probably didn’t have the power to hear them, according to SCOTUSblog.

The Supreme Court stay will remain in place throughout the litigation.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

SCOTUSblog, the Washington Post, the New York Times and Politico are among the publications with coverage.

According to Politico, “the decision’s ultimate impact is murky because another federal judge has issued a separate order reinstating many of the same probationary workers.”

Alsup had granted the preliminary injunction in a March 13 ruling from the bench, he said in a March 14 memorandum opinion. He ordered the employees’ reinstatement based on a finding that the Office of Personnel Management had no authority to fire employees of another agency. That authority belongs to each agency, he said.

Alsup’s injunction reinstated probationary workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense and the Department of the Treasury, according to a March 13 press release.

The government has contended that the firings can only be contested by individual employees before the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The case is Office of Personnel Management v. American Federation of Government Employees.

See also:

Judge orders Trump officials to offer jobs back to fired probationary workers

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3. 3 lawyers with ‘elite establishment credentials’…

Careers

3 lawyers with ‘elite establishment credentials’ have joined Musk’s DOGE effort, report says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 12, 2025, 3:10 pm CST

Three lawyers who have joined Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have “elite establishment credentials,” according to a report by ProPublica.

Two of the lawyers have clerked for U.S. Supreme Court justices, while the third has been hired as a Supreme Court clerk for the 2025-2026 term, ProPublica reports here and here. They also have BigLaw ties. The lawyers are:

  • James Burnham, who is the DOGE’s general counsel. A former clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch, Burnham was formerly a Jones Day partner. He worked in the White House counsel’s office and the U.S. Department of Justice in the first Trump administration. More recently, he launched a boutique law firm and a litigation finance fund.

  • Keenan Kmiec, a former clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts. He worked at a “corporate law firm” (identified as Sidley Austin on LinkedIn), worked at his own firm handling insider trading litigation, worked at a Swiss foundation promoting blockchain, and was the CEO of a startup.

  • Jacob Altik, who has been hired to clerk for Gorsuch beginning this summer. He is a former associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and a former intern at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to “protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the administrative state.”

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3. Lawyer accused of spying on Muslim colleagues…

Ethics

Lawyer accused of spying on Muslim colleagues gives up law license

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 5, 2024, 12:25 pm CST

A lawyer has resigned from the bar after he was accused of spying on his colleagues at an Ohio-based chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy and civil rights organization.

The Ohio Supreme Court accepted the resignation of lawyer Romin Iqbal of Dublin, Ohio, on Monday, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

A disciplinary action against Iqbal was pending, but details are sealed in such cases.

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat Fischer dissented because of the “transparency problem” posed by sealed proceedings. He went on to offer information on Iqbal that is available from public sources, including the Columbus Dispatch.

Iqbal worked with the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for 15 years, including three years in which he was the executive director beginning in 2018. An internal investigation by the Council on American-Islamic Relations found that since at least 2008, Iqbal had provided confidential information about the group to the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

The investigative project is a nonprofit that seeks to expose terrorist organizations. The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other groups have labeled the project an anti-Islamic hate group.

Iqbal reportedly shared confidential meeting recordings, emails and strategic plans with the investigative project. The Council on American-Islamic Relations fired Iqbal in 2021.

“Iqbal broke the trust and confidentiality of the organization he was working for, and by working directly contrary to that organization’s interests, he opened himself up to disciplinary charges,” Fischer wrote. “For transparency purposes and for the protection of the public, I would not accept Iqbal’s application for retirement or resignation with disciplinary action pending.”

The Columbus Dispatch was unable to reach Iqbal for comment. A lawyer who once represented Iqbal, David Thomas, declined to comment to the publication. The ABA Journal left a message at a phone number for Iqbal listed by the state bar but did not get an immediate response.

Amina Barhumi, the current executive director of the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told the Columbus Dispatch that Iqbal’s resignation from the bar “begins to provide some sort of closure for the community.”

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3. NRA general counsel violated statutory duties…

Verdicts & Settlements

NRA general counsel violated statutory duties but caused no monetary harm, jurors find; LaPierre liable for $5.4M

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 26, 2024, 12:41 pm CST

The general counsel for the National Rifle Association was among three senior NRA leaders found to have violated their statutory duties by jurors Friday.

Jurors found former NRA executive vice president and former CEO Wayne LaPierre liable for $5.4 million in damages and former chief financial officer Wilson “Woody” Phillips liable for $2 million. Jurors also found that the NRA didn’t handle charitable funds properly and violated state whistleblower laws.

But jurors found that NRA corporate secretary and general counsel John Frazer did not cause financial harm and was not liable for damages. Jurors found that he made false statements in NRA filings, but there was no cause to remove him.

Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James announced the Feb. 23 verdict in a press release.

Law360, NBC News and the Associated Press have coverage.

James had sued the NRA and top officials for civil fraud. Her lawsuit alleged that LaPierre exploited the NRA for the benefit of himself and his inner circle, using donor money to pay for private jets, expensive meals and family vacations.

According to the press release, James presented evidence that Phillips allegedly had a no-show post-employment contract, that whistleblowers faced harassment and intimidation, that the NRA paid invoices for LaPierre’s repeated flights to the Bahamas, and that invoices worth more than $4 million were passed through a vendor to conceal expenses incurred by NRA executives.

LaPierre has already repaid the NRA more than $1 million, leaving him liable for $4.35 million.

A separate bench trial will determine whether an independent compliance monitor should be appointed. The trial will also determine whether the NRA and Frazer should be barred from soliciting funds for charitable organizations in New York.

A lawyer from Frazer, William Fleming, told Law360 that he is disappointed with the verdict.

In an online statement, the NRA said the jury verdict “confirms what the National Rifle Association of America … contended all along—that it was victimized by certain former vendors and ‘insiders’ who abused the trust placed in them by the association.”

“During a 24-day jury trial, the NRA established the [New York attorney general] cannot prove self-dealing or bad faith by the NRA board of directors,” the statement said. “The NRA disputed key allegations in the [New York attorney general]’s complaint—namely, that any governance issues at the NRA are ‘persistent.’ As importantly, the NRA established that it adopted new policies and accounting controls, displaced vendors and ‘insiders’ who abused the association, and accepted reparations for costs determined to be excess benefits. Most of these corrective measures—part of an internal investigation ignited by the NRA board—were adopted before the [New York attorney general] filed her lawsuit. The NRA’s commitment to good governance was on full display during the trial proceedings.”

See also:

“Civil fraud trial seeking independent monitor for NRA begins after CEO’s resignation, official’s $100K settlement”

“Ex-NRA CEO didn’t consult GCs office about key legal decisions, general counsel testifies”