Targeting Lawyers: Who Will Speak Up for Them?

It’s easy, even fashionable, to hate lawyers.

Until you need one.

Imagine you’re accused of a crime. Or you want a divorce. Or you own a company and hope to do business with the federal government, maybe supplying goods or technology.

You need competent, zealous legal representation.

Now imagine that the attorney or firm you wish to hire won’t represent you because you, or they, are on the president’s enemies list.

Recently, the ability of lawyers and firms to represent whomever they want, or whatever issue they wish, is being compromised by the president’s retribution and revenge. Judges whose rulings displease him become targets of his ire, putting them and their families at risk of real physical harm from supporters.

This has real, negative effects for all of us. If these attempts at intimidation are successful, the rule of law—something we all depend upon, even take for granted—breaks down.

Lawyers are the backbone of a stable society. ~Michael Smerconish

When I was in high school in the 1970s, I learned about the civil rights movement and the critical role lawyers played in protecting the rights of individuals to protest and speak up.[1]

Inspired, I became an attorney, and while I didn’t end up working in the civil rights arena, I spent most of my 30-plus years advocating for the rights of those with little or no voice: children; the elderly; incapacitated persons (whether from physical or mental challenges); victims of crime; and in the mid-1980s, people with HIV/AIDS when few agreed to be near them for fear they’d “catch” it themselves.

Representing such clients, the court, or the county, paid me at a low, set hourly rate. I earned far less than most attorneys, especially those in large firms with corporate clients who can afford to pay their high fees. But I was fine with that. Money has not motivated me.

As my father liked to tease, I’m a bleeding-heart liberal. I enjoy helping others. Sue me.

In all those years, there were few attorneys I actually liked or befriended. I found most of them arrogant, boorish, or bullies. Some were unethical. I enjoyed telling lawyer jokes, making fun of us all because, too often, the jokes had an element of truth.[2] For years, when introducing myself to someone, I sheepishly apologized for being an attorney, explaining, “I’m not like most attorneys.”

When I fully retired from the law in 2021, largely because of the pandemic, I missed it at first. I missed helping real people with genuine problems who otherwise wouldn’t have representation in the technical and confusing legal arena. Ultimately, though, I felt relief. No more dealing with asshole attorneys. No more taking on all the emotional weight of representing such challenging and needy clients. Lawyer burnout is real. I felt I’d done my part. I was proud of my long legal career, but also ready to put it in my rear-view mirror.

Never in a million years did I expect that, just four years later, a US president would use an executive order to target individual lawyers and their firms because of who they once represented while simultaneously trying to suppress who they can represent in the future.

Let this really sink in: the executive order trying to hamstring one of those major law firms said that Perkins Coie carried out “dishonest and dangerous activity.” Based on that vague allegation, the president’s order declared the firm and its lawyers a threat to national security. The firm’s attorneys were instantly barred from all federal buildings, including federal courthouses, and unable to continue representing any client with a security clearance. One of Perkins Coie’s major long-term clients? Boeing. Lots of security clearances at Boeing because they have so many military contracts. You can imagine how the order would negatively affect that lawyer-client relationship.

Just what was that alleged dishonest and dangerous activity, anyway? Apparently, representing Hilary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign, which included hiring Fusion GPS to do opposition research. Fusion GPS hired former British spy Christopher Steele, who produced a dossier of research, later turned over to the FBI for its review, that asserted Russia was engaged in longstanding efforts to aid the president and had amassed compromising information about him. (Later, the dossier was discredited for including unverified rumors.)

Fast forward to post-2024-election, and his Department of Justice (I use “his” deliberately here because this president has installed loyal cronies at the top who will do his bidding, no matter how unethical and despite their lawyer oaths) has become his private weapon of retribution and misinformation. This, despite the fact that the DOJ is supposed to represent the American people writ large.[3]

The president started his retribution campaign at the top, targeting large, well-known, national law firms. Perkins Coie is one of them. Initially, the tactic was effective: some firms capitulated, fearing his wrath and the impact on their ability to retain clients. They agreed to do the president’s bidding, with no promise against further retaliation from him. They gave up their firm’s soul for nothing other than the hope of continued uninterrupted income.

Now, normally I’d have no sympathy for top tier (by earnings) law firms. Their partners are there to make money, and they make mountains of it. Associates work hellish hours, hoping to make partner so they can finally jump on the gravy train. The firms choose (or decline) clients based primarily on the fees the firm can make representing them, and only the wealthy and connected can afford those fees.

All routine in the world of big law firms.

But suddenly, those big firms representing liberal causes, or any client who played any role in the president’s impeachments or criminal cases, are on the receiving end of a laser-focused campaign of retaliation. In his typical bullying fashion, the president is punishing the lawyers harshly while dangling the possibility he’ll remove the punishment if they offer him something he wants, or make a public apology, all to ensure he can appear strong, a winner.

It was no surprise to me that some of the president’s early big-law-firm targets immediately capitulated to him. They put earnings and maintaining their enormous flow of income from existing clients before truth, ethics, and the US constitution, even before their own dignity.

Agreeing to do pro bono work for causes the president approves as a way out of the bullying and retaliation? You won’t see any of the high-income partners doing that work. They’ll assign it to summer interns and first year associates who have no say in what causes they work to promote/defend and most definitely didn’t seek employment with that big firm to fall down a rabbit hole of political retribution and coercion. I so feel for them, a little, but I also think: You (mostly) knew what you were signing up for, seeking to rub shoulders with power brokers, becoming one yourself, chasing the hope of a big bucks reward in a few years.

The summer before I started law school, I worked as a secretary at Perkins Coie in their Real Property division. I saw enough in the few weeks I was there to vow to avoid large firms and the sort of (mostly) white men who strut through their impeccably decorated hallways and offices. The partners become millionaires, and that wealth is what they’re eager to protect, not their consciences, nor the well-being of their associates/support staff, or even—dare I say it—the oath they took to uphold the rule of law and the constitution. Greed, and maintaining extravagant lifestyles, is a powerful motivator for many.

So no, I won’t waste my energy feeling sorry for those large firms who capitulated to Trump’s oppression so quickly. Their quick bending of the knee undercut the next targets, emboldening the president and his tactics. They thought only to save themselves, but in so trying, they’ve abandoned ethics and morality, thrown everyone else under the bus, all while remaining open to future retaliation. Lose-lose-lose for them.

So I am applauding Perkins Coie for fighting back, even though I have nothing but a sour taste from my experiences with them.[4] If I’m honest, I was shocked to read they were among the first to fight back, to say, Wait a minute. What about due process? Free speech? Freedom of association? But good on them.

I’m also applauding the other large-ish law firms who are representing Perkins Coie as they fight back. They get it: when one firm is targeted, others must rally to their defense, even if that means risking similar treatment and retribution. Otherwise, we quickly devolve into authoritarianism, no lawyers left to said, “Stop! That’s illegal.”

We educated, privileged lawyers have a professional and moral duty to represent the underrepresented in our society, to ensure that justice exists for all, both legal and economic justice. ~Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court Justice

In March, soon after the executive order targeting law firms was signed, Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley School of Law, drafted a statement addressing the president’s retaliations against law firms. He circulated it among hundreds of law firms and law school deans, asking them to sign on, to present a solid front against an overt attack on the rule of law.

The following portions are excerpted from Chemerinsky’s April 3, 2025 guest opinion in the Washington Post:

President Donald Trump is trying to intimidate his critics into silence. And, sadly, it is working.

I saw this firsthand when I urged deans of law schools to sign a three-paragraph statement that concluded, “We … speak as legal educators, responsible for training the next generation of lawyers, in condemning any government efforts to punish lawyers or their firms based on the identity of their clients or for their zealous lawful and ethical advocacy.”

Although there was not a controversial word in the statement, only 79 of the 197 deans signed it before it was published March 26.

And some deans told me they are afraid to speak out against the Trump administration for fear that they will make themselves and their institutions targets. I assume that concern is shared by the silent university presidents and heads of law firms.

This fear is understandable.

But that is all the more reason for influential leaders to speak together. If almost every dean or every president of a major university or every managing partner of a large law firm signed a joint statement, then there would be less reason to be afraid of retribution.

More important, though, is to realize that despite the risks of speaking out, silence itself comes as at enormous cost. Giving in to a bully only makes things worse.

A day later, perhaps feeling shame after Chemerinsky and others publicly spoke out, over 500 law firms signed an amicus (friend of the court) brief in the Perkins Coie lawsuit, denouncing Trump’s efforts to punish individual firms. They noted that efforts to silence individual firms was meant to intimidate other lawyers and firms against challenging his administration or representing those who do.

Or course it was.

That amicus brief, however, was not signed by any of the 20 largest national firms. I’m not surprised.

They will be on the wrong side of history, their reputations forever tarnished.

Early legal challenges to the executive order have been successful. In blocking most of the restrictions imposed on Perkins Coie by the president’s executive order, on March 12^th US District Judge Beryl A. Howell wrote, “It sends little chills down my spine.”

***

Here’s what I’ve seen, what I know: those of us in the trenches every day, practicing law as public service employees (prosecutors, public defenders, court-appointed guardians ad litem) representing the poor, misunderstood, incapacitated, and victims of crime, take seriously and proudly uphold the oaths we swore as newly minted attorneys. We’re not motivated by money or wealthy clients—we’re paid pennies on the dollar compared to our peers employed by, or partners in, those elite, national law firms. We’re motivated by a strong moral sense to do good, helping clients in need, guided by the rule of law and ethics.

Here’s a portion of the oath I swore as a new attorney in 1983.

1. I am fully subject to the laws of the State of Washington and the laws of the United States and will abide by the same.

2. I will support the constitution of the State of Washington and the constitution of the United States.

[…]

8. I will never reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed, or delay unjustly the cause of any person.[5]

Sadly, money often corrupts, or at the least, weakens moral resolve.

Today, “we the people” are witnessing attempts by a megalomaniac to create an autocracy where only those swearing fealty to him can thrive.

I despise bullies. Always have, from the playground to courtroom posturing to politics. I learned long ago that those agreeing embolden bullies, but if confronted, if stood up to, bullies shrivel and wither, their innate weakness exposed.

It can be scary, standing up to a bully. Much is at stake. It’s infinitely easier if you have backup, if those similarly situated stand with you, pushing back hard, collectively, refusing to capitulate regardless of cost.

That’s why I’m rooting for Perkins Coie and the hundreds of law firms, bar associations, and other organizations publicly standing with them as they fight this tyrannical bully. History will look favorably upon them.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. ~Henry David Thoreau

A Lesson from History

In 1983, I graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in history. My focus was on European/WWII history, and, more specifically, the Holocaust. That’s when I first became familiar with the famous quote of Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany. He had served in the Imperial German Navy during WWI and remained an ardent nationalist after Germany’s defeat. In the 1920s and early 1930s, he sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radically right-wing political movements. But after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church. He spent the last eight years of Nazi rule, from 1937 to 1945, in Nazi prisons and concentration camps as a political prisoner, yet sought release so he could join the war effort.  

Niemöller’s famous quote, made after the war, embodied his belief that because of their silence, Germans had been complicit in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. He felt this was especially true of the leaders of the Protestant churches. But, as we lawyers say, his hands weren’t clean: his objections to Nazism were narrow and self-serving.

When “they” come for you, you’ll need a good lawyer.

Never let it be okay for any lawyer—big firm partner or solo practitioner—to be threatened with retribution because of the people or causes they represent. Never let it be okay for judges to be threatened with impeachment because of the rulings they make in good faith.

Lawyers and judges uphold the rule of law, keep everyone accountable to the principles of our constitution.

We can no longer take them and the role they play in our society for granted. Be vigilant. Speak up. Be on the right side of history.

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[1] Today, under the current political culture, I wonder if high school kids even learn about the civil rights movement, and if they do, how watered down the facts are so as not to offend certain culpable segments of society.

[2] My favorite: How are lawyers and prostitutes similar? For a fee, they’ll assume any position. And, for a greater fee, they’ll tell you they care.

[3] From the DOJ’s website (which has likely been watered down since Jan 20th, scrubbed of any reference to diversity, equality, and inclusion): About DOJ | United States Department of Justice, https://www.justice.gov: The mission of the Department of Justice is to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights. (Unless you’re LGBTQ+, an immigrant, a protesting college student, a racial or religious minority, etc. But I digress.) The dissonance between the stated mission and what’s happening on the ground these past 2.5 months is horrific.

[4] In addition to that awful summer as a secretary, I had several interactions over the years with a Perkins Coie estate planning attorney, a partner in the firm, who represented my father. Near the end of my father’s life, he told me he wanted to revise his will. I conveyed that message to the attorney, who assured me he would go visit him soon. Imagine my shock when, nine months later and soon after my father died, I learned that visit never occurred. That attorney betrayed my father’s trust, as well as my own. When I demanded to know why he failed to visit my father, the attorney resorted to bullying me so I wouldn’t file a complaint with the bar association. He was a total prick, in keeping with the other senior male attorneys I encountered at that firm during my summer job. Sadly, it’s an ingrained culture, not just at Perkins Coie, but at most big, powerful law firms.

[5] Each state bar association has a substantially similar oath, as does the federal bar.

Feature image: Visitors stand in front of the quotation from Martin Niemöller that is on display in the Permanent Exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Credits: US Holocaust Memorial Museum.