Amicus Brief on Executive Orders Targeting Law Firms

The Society for the Rule of Law has joined in filing an amicus brief in Perkins Coie LLP vs. Department of Justice et al., urging the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to affirm the permanent injunctions currently in place against the Trump Administration’s Executive Orders concerning legal representation.

The brief argues that the Executive Orders fundamentally threaten the Rule of Law. The Orders violate the targeted law firms’ First Amendment rights to legal advocacy, infringe the Fifth And Sixth Amendment Rights of the law firms’ clients, and, by attacking the independence of the bar, violate Separation of Powers principles concerning the Judiciary Branch. These actions, if allowed to stand, would have significant negative consequences for the Rule of Law, the legal profession, and the core rights and liberties of Americans.

President Trump’s systematic use of executive orders to cow law firms into political and ideological submission undermines the rule of law at its foundation. The fallout from these assaults on the bar’s independence may not be limited to lawyers who represent clients or causes that are perceived as hostile to President Trump; the precedent created here could be used by future presidents, of either party, to chill advocacy hostile to their policies or opposed to executive branch officials. If allowed to stand, these pressure tactics will have broad and lasting impacts on Americans’ ability to retain legal counsel in important matters, to arrange their business and personal affairs as they like, and to speak their minds.

Read the full brief here. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].

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