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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. Parade shooter signed his trial waiver ‘Donald…

Criminal Justice

Parade shooter signed his trial waiver ‘Donald Trump;’ will it make a difference?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 6, 2025, 12:25 pm CST

An Illinois man accused of killing seven people and wounding 48 others at a 2022 Fourth of July parade in suburban Chicago pleaded guilty to all charges Monday, but he did not sign his name to a trial waiver.

Robert Crimo III of Illinois signed his name as “Donald Trump,” but that shouldn’t affect his oral guilty plea, legal experts told the Chicago Sun-Times.

“He can sign Mickey Mouse or Donald Trump,” Richard Kling, a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology, told the newspaper. The important thing, Kling said, is the transcript of Crimo’s oral guilty plea showing that a judge “asked the magic questions, and he gave the magic answers.”

Defense lawyer Adam Sheppard agreed with that assessment but said the Trump signature could raise questions about Crimo’s ability to understand he was waiving trial.

“The fact that he used the president’s name may raise an eyebrow in terms of fitness,” Sheppard told the Chicago Sun-Times.

During the plea hearing, prosecutors summarized key evidence against Crimo in the 2022 shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, according to previous coverage by the Lake County News-Sun via the Chicago Tribune. He was spotted dropping a semiautomatic rifle covered in cloth after the shooting, DNA linked him to the crime, and he had confessed on videotape.

Still ongoing are civil lawsuits filed by victims and their families. Defendants include Crimo’s father, who sponsored his son’s Firearm Owner’s Identification card, and the Illinois State Police, which approved the application. Other defendants include Smith & Wesson and the companies that sold the weapon.

See also:

After deadly shootings, ABA House pushes for tighter gun controls

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3. Lawyer accused of stealing over $31K from…

Criminal Justice

Lawyer accused of stealing over $31K from jailed woman after she signed power of attorney at his request

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 13, 2024, 9:51 am CST

A lawyer in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, has been accused of stealing more than $31,000 from an imprisoned woman awaiting a competency hearing after she agreed to sign an agreement giving power of attorney to his employee.

Lawyer John Allen Roth, 69, of Pennsylvania is accused of using the stolen money to support his gambling habit, according to a Nov. 7 press release.

TribLive (here and here) and WJAC-TV are among the publications with coverage.

Roth has been charged with nine felonies, including theft, financial exploitation, deceptive business practices and receiving stolen property.

In a preliminary arraignment last week, Roth asked to be released without cash bail.

Roth said he was struggling financially after losing clients because of a cancer diagnosis, according to TribLive’s coverage.

“I don’t have money to be able to post anything at all, I don’t even have $1,000 to post,” he said. “Cancer has ruined my life, and it has made it impossible for me to even make a living.”

Pennsylvania Judge Chris Flanigan set bail at $250,000. Roth has since sought a bail reduction and a venue transfer from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.

The 70-year-old jailed woman told detectives that Roth visited her in prison and offered to represent her for $2,500, even though she already had a lawyer. He returned a few days later and allegedly asked the woman to sign the power of attorney. The woman signed the form in March, according to the press release.

Fourteen withdrawals ranging from $100 to $5,000 were made from the jailed woman’s account, court records indicate.

Roth’s “Player’s Club” account at the Live! Casino indicated that he made more than $382,000 in transactions at the casino from April to September, according to the press release.

The employee with power of attorney sometimes accompanied Roth to the casino, she told investigators. She is also facing charges in the case.

Roth was disciplined in 2016, receiving a public reprimand for alleged conflicts of interest in two cases. In one, Roth filed a divorce case against a client he was representing in a civil matter, the reprimand said.

In another, Roth filed a bankruptcy for a woman, even though he represented her husband in their divorce case. The husband was listed as a co-debtor for various creditors, the reprimand said.

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3. Courtroom ‘is not a theater’ for unsubstantiated…

Rule of Law

Courtroom ‘is not a theater’ for unsubstantiated election claims, says letter signed by 125 bar leaders

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 5, 2024, 12:42 pm CST

All lawsuits—including election-related actions—must be “grounded in fact, supported by law and free from improper motives,” according to an open letter signed by 125 past and current bar leaders when it was published Monday evening.

“The courtroom is not a theater for unsubstantiated claims,” according to the letter.

Among the bar leaders who signed the letter are four people who identify themselves as former ABA presidents: R. William “Bill” Ide (1994-95), Dennis W. Archer (2003-2004), Laurel G. Bellows (2012-2013) and James R. Silkenat (2013-2014).

Mary Smith, who is the immediate past president of the ABA, also signed the letter but identified herself as a past president of the National Native American Bar Association.

Another former ABA president, Linda Klein, (2016-2017) also signed the letter but identified herself as a past president of the State Bar of Georgia.

Some members of the ABA Task Force for American Democracy organized the letter in their personal capacity.

U.S. News & World Report spoke with Monte E. Frank, a member of the ABA Task Force for American Democracy’s advisory commission. He said the letter is intended to remind lawyers that they are “oath-bound protectors of the Constitution and rule of law.”

“By having state bar and local bar and national bar leaders stand up and lead on this sends a very powerful message to those who are seeking to undermine the integrity of our elections,” said Frank, who signed the letter as a past president of the Connecticut Bar Association and the New England Bar Association.

After the 2020 presidential election, “some 628 legal cases were filed alleging fraud or impropriety, and they were overwhelmingly unsuccessful,” the letter said. Five lawyers connected to the cases were disbarred or suspended from law practice.

The baseless cases stirred confusion and anger, leading to threats against election workers, judges and others and likely contributing to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the letter said.

“Filing election-related lawsuits without a solid factual and legal foundation endangers the very institutions lawyers are oath-bound to defend,” the letter said. “In a functioning democracy, lawsuits are not weapons to spread distrust—they are tools for justice.”

One day after federal prosecutors said his arguments in favor of an early prison exit were “footless,” former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is trying to “take advantage” of the First Step Act, criminal justice reform signed into law and “championed” by then President Donald Trump, in a bid for some leniency on his punishment for the “non-violent” offense of stonewalling the Jan. 6 Committee.

The Friday reply from Bannon, which comes weeks after he asked U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to reimpose bail pending appeal based on “significant events,” reiterated that the federal inmate’s contempt of Congress stint behind bars should end before Election Day.