Deborah Pearlstein:
So they seem to be targeting these firms, and they’re doing it through sort of executive pronouncements. They call them executive orders, but they’re not executive orders in any traditional sense.
And they’re targeting firms expressly because they say these firms have hired or employed lawyers who took positions against the administration. They represented Democratic political officials. They took on representation of people who were advocating for transgender individuals, right?
And so the administration is expressly saying, if you do these things, if you represent people we don’t like, issues we don’t like, we are going to, in the case of corporate law firms, strip lawyers there of security clearance, deny them access to federal buildings, including federal courthouses, and take other measures that effectively make it impossible for these firms to do business.
We’re seeing a few, two firms in particular, try to strike deals with the administration to avoid the worst effects of these. And we’re seeing the courts consistently, three different judges, three different courts, strike down these orders as unconstitutional, I think rightly.
But in the meantime, the chilling effect that we’re seeing across law firms, even those firms that haven’t been targeted directly, is beginning to impact not so much the ability of corporate clients to get lawyers. They are still able to get lawyers. That are a lot of law firms out there. But the willingness of firms to take on pro bono or even paid clients who are taking positions that the administration doesn’t like.
This is a threat not just to the First Amendment rights of the firms and the lawyers who work there, but the ability of individuals to give effect — the right of effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment. That’s part of the central reason why the courts are striking these down so quickly.
