Bloomberg Law Opinion: Big Law's Silence on Trump Attacking Firms Should Scare Us All
Bloomberg Law | March 19, 2025
Zimmer Citron & Clarke’s David Zimmer and Edwina Clarke say major law firms need to band together and speak out against Trump targeting lawyers—their fiduciary duty to clients complicates the issue, but it’s no excuse for silence.
President Donald Trump’s decision to target major law firms that represent clients he doesn’t like is an unprecedented challenge to the legal profession. Punishing lawyers who take on politically disfavored clients threatens to make legal representation far less accessible for his opponents.
Yet this assault on the practice of law has met with a shocking silence from US major law firms. Many have attributed this silence to cowardice and fear of losing money, but the truth is likely both more complicated and more frightening.
Lawyers have long recognized a responsibility to represent unpopular clients, even in the face of significant risk. When President John Adams famously defended the British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre trial, he wrote that his wife Abigail would, each night, “burst into a flood of Tears, … sensible of all the Danger to her and to our Children as well as to me.”
The American Civil Liberties Union defended the Nazi Party’s right to march through Skokie, Ill., even while its office was attacked by the Jewish Defense League and the lead lawyer on the case was forced to temporarily relocate his family. And lawyers challenging segregation during the Civil Rights Movement faced house bombings and death threats.
Lawyers take pride in standing up to these attacks. Adams, for instance, described his work on the Boston Massacre trial as “one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole Life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.”
Trump’s executive orders attacking Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie, and Paul Weiss represent an equally if not more serious assault on the legal profession than these historical threats of mob violence. He’s using the power of the federal government to target these firms explicitly because they once represented clients and causes he doesn’t like.
The executive orders inflict shockingly broad punishment for representing Trump’s political adversaries. They threaten to prevent any company with a federal contract from hiring the firms and two of them bar any firm attorney from accessing a federal government building—including, potentially, the federal courts.
Perkins Coie represented in court that approximately a quarter of its revenue comes from clients that contract with the federal government and that the executive order would “spell the end of the law firm.”
It’s difficult to overstate the threat to the legal profession from the US government claiming the power to dismantle law firms that take on cases the president doesn’t like. The judge hearing Perkins Coie’s challenge said reading the executive order sent “chills down my spine.”
Any lawyer reading these orders should feel the same way.
Given all of this, one might expect major law firms to quickly decry these orders and stand with the targeted firms. Practically every major firm has, at some point, either led or supported a challenge to a significant Trump administration policy. Even more traditionally conservative firms that represented the Trump campaigns have undertaken pro bono work representing immigrants fighting deportation.
Instead of supporting the targeted firms, however, their peers have left them isolated. Numerous Big Law partners and associates have posted statements on social media supporting Covington, Perkins Coie, and Paul Weiss. But the law firms themselves have been stunningly silent; to our knowledge, not a single firm has publicly issued a statement of solidarity.
This silence continues in the face of growing criticism of Big Law inaction. Given the number of millionaires at major law firms, it’s easy to see why some attribute this silence to cowardice and greed. The reality is likely more complicated—and more troubling.
Lawyers owe a fiduciary duty to act in their clients’ best interests. Being targeted by an executive order like the ones against Covington, Perkins Coie, and Paul Weiss can create problems for a firm’s clients, risking their federal contracts or disrupting their representation in major litigation or corporate transactions. Making a public statement that might increase the risk of being targeted by Trump creates both financial and ethical concerns that these firms must take seriously.
That explanation is no excuse, even if correct. Burying your head in the sand hasn’t proven to be an effective way to avoid Trump’s ire. Firms’ willingness to stay silent raises the question of how far they will go to try to appease Trump. Will they, for instance, refuse to take on cases challenging his administration’s policies or defending his political adversaries?
Given the role that the biggest firms historically have played in taking on high-profile cases adverse to presidential administrations of all political persuasions, the idea that these firms would simply roll over is a chilling thought.
It’s hard to believe this silence will last. As Trump becomes more confident and attacks more law firms, it will become clear that silence isn’t an option and that firms must band together to defend the profession. Given the rate at which Trump is targeting firms, that time may come sooner rather than later.
Originally published by Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law on March 19, 2025 available at https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/big-laws-silence-on-trump-attacking-firms-should-scare-us-all.