The American Bar Association sued the Trump administration Monday, saying the president’s aggressive crackdown on large law firms aligned against him has chilled lawyers’ ability to litigate cases, especially pro bono legal work on hot-button issues like immigration.
The lawsuit, filed in Washington, DC, by the ABA, which has members who are attorneys in firms that cut a deal with the Trump administration, asks a judge to declare that several of the provisions in Trump’s executive orders targeting major law firms are unconstitutional. Those sections include things like terminating attorneys’ security clearances or access to federal buildings.
The lawsuit says the Trump administration’s moves toward law firms have “cast a deep chill” over the entire profession, unfairly and unconstitutionally.
“Many attorneys are no longer willing to take on representations that would require suing the federal government,” the lawsuit states. “Others have dropped ongoing representations; ended their participation in contemplated cases; or declined representations – even of clients with whom they had longstanding prior attorney-client relationships – not because the merits of the case were weak or the attorney had some substantive objection to taking the case, but because the representation was deemed too likely to result in severe retaliation from the President pursuant to the Intimidation Policy.”
The lawsuit appears to build upon the strained and hostile politics between large swaths of the American legal community and the Trump administration. The Justice Department has repeatedly refuted the ABA since Trump took office.
DOJ attorneys are no longer allowed to participate in the legal association’s events, which had been standard for years, and the Department revoked the ABA’s access to nonpublic information on judicial nominees. Attorney General Pam Bondi said at the time the ABA had “lost its way, and we do not believe it serves as a fair arbiter of judicial nominees.”
CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
As part of the lawsuit, the ABA pointed to specific examples of legal efforts already being hampered by the administration. One organization said it “had to forgo litigation against the Administration” because lawyers dropped out in the wake of Trump’s executive orders. And law firm partners who are ABA members, report their firms are unwilling to take on cases, especially pro bono, that they might otherwise have because of the current state of fear. At least one firm is preparing for the possibility of retaliation from the Trump administration.
“The President’s attacks on law firms through the Law Firm Orders are thus not isolated events, but one component of a broader, deliberate policy designed to intimidate and coerce law firms and lawyers to refrain from challenging the President or his Administration in court,” the ABA argues.
Some attorneys who wanted to share their experiences as part of the suit were instructed by their respective firms not to do so, the lawsuit says.
The law firms that are under heavily restrictive executive orders from the Trump White House each have sued, and have been winning their cases against the administration.
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