Dem
47
GOP
53
In the past 6 months, we have seen one big law firm after another cave to Donald Trump and agree to provide free legal services to clients of his choosing in exchange for the privilege of continuing to exist. In some cases, Trump revoked security clearances from lawyers who needed them to handle national security cases. In other cases, Trump simply announced that the lawyers were forbidden from entering federal property, such as courtrooms. If the firms had fought back, they might have lost on the security clearances because the president probably does have the authority to revoke them at will, but he certainly does not have the authority to simply ban anyone from entering federal property just because he says so. Weighing their options, many firms chose to cave rather than fight cases they could almost certainly win.
The firms caved because they have so much business involving the government that they didn't want to risk hurting their income by fighting Trump, even though they knew they would win in the end. They also knew that promising to spend $[X] million on cases Trump wanted defended meant almost nothing because: (1) Trump has already forgotten about the deal and (2) in a pinch, the firms could hire third-year law students who would get some experience and claim the students worked hundreds of hours @ $5000/hr because Trump was in such a hurry to have his cases go forward.
Interestingly enough, it is the small law firms, sometimes solo lawyers, who are not cowed the way the big white shoe firms have been. A virtual army of small firms and solo practitioners have stepped up to volunteer to take on cases challenging the administration. Many of them have banded together and joined the legal nonprofit "Lawyers for Good Government." These lawyers are open to working pro bono to challenge the administration. For example, when one nonprofit needed help, it issued a plea asking for lawyers who could donate up to 20 hours a week on an upcoming case. More than 80 lawyers volunteered.
Michael Ansell, a solo law practitioner in Morristown, NJ, mostly handles small business disputes. He doesn't have any government contracts Trump could cancel just like that. He recently took on a case in which about 20 community and tribal groups and several cities sued to get money they were owed on account of contracts signed with the Biden administration, but which Trump simply refused to pay out because he didn't want to. There are at least 400 such suits pending now. Ansell is especially interested in taking on cases in which the plaintiff has been denied due process. Trump does not have the authority to cancel contracts just because he doesn't like them or the people being paid. If the government signed a contract with some group and they did the work required, they must be paid. Other solo lawyers and small firms have other interests.
Another legal nonprofit is the Pro Bono Litigation Corps, led by John Marks and Gary DiBianco. It is a small entrant in a field dominated by big nonprofits like the ACLU, Democracy Forward, Protect Democracy, and Public Citizen. Still, there is more than enough work to go around. The small firms have taken the lead on immigration cases. DiBianco said: "If every single immigrant who has a baby in the U.S. has to sue to obtain citizenship, we are happy to create an army of lawyers to represent those people."
Another thing the small firms are doing is helping the big ones. When Perkins Coie sued the DoJ to block Trump's XO against it, 504 small firms signed a friend of the court brief to support Perkins Coie. Only eight of the nation's top 100 law firms signed on, so only the small ones have the guts to stand up to Trump.
Sometimes the small firms have some niche issue they care about. When Karen Burgess, a commercial litigator in Austin, TX, read that her alma mater, Rice University, had been attacked by Trump about its DEI program, she called up its leadership and offered her services to sue the government. She said if Rice ends up in court, "we'll give what we can and be happy to do it." Heidi Burakiewicz has a boutique D.C. firm that specializes in employment law in the federal sector. She has taken on cases in which government employees were simply fired in violation of the law. She said: "I have three daughters. When this is all said and done, I need to look them in the face and know I did everything I could."
It is not only the small firms that are fighting back. There are also some very high-powered lawyers who are helping out as individuals. Norman Eisen, a former Obama administration ethics official, founded the Democracy Defenders Fund, which pays individual lawyers and small firms to take on cases where the people challenging the administration can't afford lawyers. Abbe Lowell is another very well known lawyer who often collaborates with Eisen's group. He said: "When this administration came into power, they were bragging about their strategy to flood the zone. It turns out that the legal community is flooding the zone and they're the ones that can't keep up." (V)