Law Firm Targeted By Trump Executive Order Sues Administration
The law firm Perkins Coie filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Tuesday, challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week that appeared to punish the firm for its election work representing his political opponents.
The order has drawn criticism for its potential to undermine fair elections by intimidating attorneys or law firms who might represent Democrats.
Perkins Coie, which is being represented by Williams & Connolly, argued that Trump’s order violated federal law and “is an affront to the Constitution and our adversarial system of justice.”
“Its plain purpose is to bully those who advocate points of view that the President perceives as adverse to the views of his Administration, whether those views are presented on behalf of paying or pro bono clients,” the lawsuit reads.
Trump’s order called on agencies to suspend Perkins Coie lawyers’ security credentials, to bar the lawyers from accessing government buildings and to terminate any contract they had with the firm — effectively paralyzing the firm’s ability to represent clients dealing with the federal government.
Trump claimed Perkins Coie employees having access to government buildings would “threaten the national security” of the U.S. because of the firm’s work with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Perkins Coie said it believed Trump also targeted it for its handling of “challenges brought by the Trump campaign seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as victories the firm won for its clients in a significant number of voting rights cases,” the lawsuit reads.
The firm noted that in the 2024 election, Trump threatened to retaliate against his political opponents and the attorneys who represented them.
“By reason of the order, the firm has lost clients, lost business (as clients have withdrawn business or given new business to other firms), and received worried inquiries from clients, including its largest clients, which question whether it can adequately represent them in light of the administration’s demonstrated animus,” Perkins Coie’s lawsuit reads.
Just hours after the firm filed its lawsuit, a federal judge scheduled a Wednesday hearing for its motion for a temporary restraining order against the executive order.
Disclosure: Democracy Docket Founder Marc Elias served as chair of the Political Law Group at Perkins Coie until 2021, and played a role in some of the work that the White House has cited as justification for its executive order.