Legal Ethics Roundup: European Treaty To Protect Lawyers, EOs – Jenner/Wilmer/Skadden, Dozen OpEds On Democracy + Ethics, Letters From Deans/Profs/AGs, Bankruptcy Judge Resigns, O’Connor Bday & More

Ed. note: Please welcome Renee Knake Jefferson back to the pages of Above the Law. Subscribe to her Substack, Legal Ethics Roundup, here.

Welcome to what captivates, haunts, inspires, and surprises me every week in the world of legal ethics.

Hello from France!

We wrapped up my daughter’s spring break in Paris, where I felt like my head was spinning as I tried to keep up with the many legal ethics headlines back home. As announced last week, the LER now maintains a Legal Ethics & Democracy Tracker to help all of us keep up. It’s a great place to find the latest news if you don’t want to wait until the LER arrives in your email inbox on Monday mornings.

One professional item to share – Law360 selected me to join its 2025 Editorial Advisory Board on Legal Ethics. I’m one of two academics – Theo Liebmann (Hofstra) is the other. We join Amy Richardson (HWG LLP), Dan Kozusk (Willkie), James B. Kobak, Jr. (Hughes Hubbard), James Q. Walker (Perkins Coie), Paul Matthew Koning (Koning Rubarts), Rachel Nguyen (Morgan Lewis), Sari Montgomery (Robinson Stewart), Steven Badger (Barnes & Thornburg), and Trisha Rich (Holland & Knight).

Now for the headlines. It’s official – the LER will be delivering you a ‘Top Fifteen’ instead of our usual ‘Top Ten’ for the foreseeable future given the recent surge in breaking news about the ethics of lawyers and judges. And technically this week’s list is closer to thirty headlines, especially because #15 includes a dozen op-eds on legal ethics and democracy. You might want to grab a cup of coffee before you read to the end!

Highlights from Last Week – Top Fifteen Headlines

#1 “Trump Expands Retribution Against Law Firms in New Executive Order.” From the Wall Street Journal: “President Trump signed an executive order targeting the Jenner & Block law firm. He cited the firm’s ties to prosecutor Robert Mueller and investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.. … Tuesday’s order also explicitly targets pro bono work the firm has taken on to challenge the administration’s policies, saying it abused its pro bono practice to engage in activities that undermine justice and the interests of the United States. Jenner has touted its extensive pro bono work in the past, and this year has backed lawsuits challenging the administration’s policies, including on behalf of transgender individuals and asylum seekers.” Read more here and here (gift link). Read the full EO here.

Jenner won a temporary restraining order on Friday, March 28. From Bloomberg Law: “A DC federal judge on Friday temporarily barred the Trump administration from enforcing an executive order targeting law firm Jenner & Block. The ruling halts most of President Donald Trump’s March 25 order, which directed agencies to restrict firm employees from accessing US buildings and terminate government contracts with Jenner clients. The firm did not seek a temporary restraining order against another section of the order that strips lawyers’ security clearances.” Read more here.

The firm has created a website “Jenner Stands Firm” to follow their legal challenge to the EO. From the website:

On March 28 2025, Jenner & Block filed a lawsuit to stop an unconstitutional executive order that has already been declared unlawful by a federal court. We expect to prevail quickly. For more than 100 years, Jenner has stood firm and tirelessly advocated for our clients against all adversaries, including against unlawful government action. We once again go to court to do just that. To do otherwise would mean compromising our ability to zealously advocate for all of our clients and capitulating to unconstitutional government coercion, which is simply not in our DNA.

#2 “Trump Executive Order Targets WilmerHale, Citing Robert Mueller Ties.” From the Washington Post: “President Donald Trump on Thursday signed another executive order aimed at what he labeled ‘rogue law firms,’ this time calling on federal agencies to end all contracts with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, known as WilmerHale. The directive calls on the government to avoid hiring the firm’s employees, restricting its employees’ access to government buildings and suspending security clearances for its lawyers.” Read more here (gift link). Read the full EO here.

WilmerHale won a temporary restraining order on Friday, March 28. From a WilmerHale spokesperson: “We appreciate the court’s swift action to preserve our clients’ right to counsel and acknowledgement of the unconstitutional nature of the executive order and its chilling effect on the legal system. The court’s decision to block key provisions of the order vindicates our and our clients’ foundational First Amendment rights.” Read the full opinion granting the TRO from US District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Richard Leon here and the hearing transcript here. Key provisions from Judge Leon’s opinion are highlighted below:

“This prohibition includes retaliatory actions based on perceived viewpoint. The retaliatory nature of the Executive Order at issue here is clear from its face – not only from Section 1, but also from the Fact Sheet published the same day. …There is no doubt this retaliatory action chills speech and legal advocacy, or that it qualifies as a constitutional harm.”

“While economic loss does not always warrant a TRO, this is not a typical situation. This plaintiff faces more than economic harm – it faces crippling losses, and its very survival is at stake.”

“The injuries to plaintiff here would be severe, and would spill over to clients and the justice system at large. The public interest demands protecting against harms of this magnitude.”

#3 Executive Order Threatening Skadden Avoided With $100M Settlement. From CBS News: “President Trump announced Friday that the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom agreed to provide more than $100 million in pro bono work for initiatives backed by his administration. The agreement makes Skadden Arps the second major firm to reach a deal with Mr. Trump amid a recent blitz of executive orders targeting law firms that have employed his purported political opponents. The orders issued by the president have focused on the firms Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. … The president said in a statement posted to Truth Social that in addition to providing $100 million in pro bono work, the firm will not engage in ‘illegal DEI discrimination and preferences’ and work with an outside counsel to advise it on employment practices.” Read more here.

#4 The Ethics of Big Law Approaches to Executive Orders — Settle or Sue. From the New York Times: “The nation’s legal profession is being split between those that want to fight back against President Trump’s attacks on the industry and those that prefer to engage in the art of the deal. Two big firms sued the Trump administration on Friday, seeking to stop executive orders that could impair their ability to represent clients. The lawsuits filed by Jenner & Block and WilmerHale highlight how some elite firms are willing to fight Mr. Trump’s campaign targeting those he doesn’t like, while others, like Paul Weiss and Skadden, have cut deals to appease the president. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has issued similarly styled executive orders against firms that he perceives as enemies and threats to national security. The orders could create an existential crisis for firms because they would strip lawyers of security clearances, bar them from entering federal buildings and discourage federal officials from interacting with the firms. ‘I am heartened by the fact that Jenner and Wilmer are joining Perkins in pushing back on these illegal executive orders. It shows that capitulation is not the only route,’ said Matthew Diller, a law professor and former dean of Fordham University School of Law. ‘In the long run, it will strengthen their reputations in the market as forceful advocates who stand up for principle, a quality that many clients will value.’” Read more here (gift link).

#5 “Trump Targets Big Law, and Big Law Appears Intimidated.” From National Public Radio: “For weeks, President Trump has been issuing executive orders and memos that levy or threaten sanctions on major law firms. The moves suspend security clearances, cancel government contracts, bar employees from federal buildings — and other actions that threaten their ability to represent their clients. … We hear from Rachel Cohen, who publicly threatened to resign from her law firm in protest.” Listen here.

#6 “Top Republicans Rebuff Trump’s Demands to Impeach Judges; GOP Lawmakers Pursue Other Ways to Rein in the Judiciary.” From the Wall Street Journal: “President Trump’s call to impeach judges who have ruled against him is going nowhere in the GOP-controlled Congress, even as Elon Musk and other MAGA voices continue to rage against court orders slowing initiatives on immigration and other contentious issues. While some Republican lawmakers have heartily backed impeachments, others see them as a wrongheaded distraction from their party’s legislative agenda and are pursuing alternative ways to rein in the judiciary. Removing a judge requires a majority vote in the House, followed by a two-thirds vote in the Senate—the former an uncertainty, the latter a near impossibility. … Chief Justice John Roberts last week cautioned that impeachment ‘is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.’” Read more here (gift link).

#7 “17 Attorneys Seek Disqualification of LA Judge Citing Bias, Abuse.” From the Daily Journal: “The attorneys say Superior Court Judge Mary Ann Murphy has demonstrated a pattern of hostility, bias, and racially charged comments from the bench. Declarations detail courtroom behavior described as ‘abusive,’ ‘unhinged,’ and ‘shockingly prejudicial.’” Read more here.

#8 “Minnesota Federal Bankruptcy Judge to Resign Amid Misconduct Allegations.” From Aliza Shatzman (Legal Accountability Project) in Above the Law: “This is the biggest judicial accountability story since Joshua Kindred resigned in scandal last year, but the federal courts would prefer you not know about it.” Read more here.

#9 “How BigLaw Is Tweaking Diversity Messaging Amid Pushback.” From Law360: “As the Trump administration intensifies its scrutiny of diversity programs, some of the nation’s leading law firms are quietly adjusting how they publicly present their diversity commitments, including softening language, scrubbing” websites. Read more here.

#10 Remembering the Ethics of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Last week was SDO’s birthday, and Scott Bales offers a remembrance of her that includes the ethics she applied to her work on the bench. She would’ve turned 95. From Bales’ essay in The Arizona Republic: “Justice O’Connor saw that preserving the Constitution and our democracy ultimately depend on public understanding and engagement. Only by participating as citizens can we work together to address our nation’s problems, ‘putting country and the common good above party and self-interest, and holding our key government institutions accountable.’” Read more here. For additional tidbits about SDO as the first female Supreme Court justice, revisit LER Bonus Content No. 7. For coverage of her funeral, revisit LER Bonus Content No. 8.

#11 “Council of Europe Adopts International Convention on Protecting Lawyers.” From the Council of Europe Website: “The Council of Europe has adopted the first-ever international treaty aiming to protect the profession of lawyer. This is to respond to increasing reports of attacks on the practice of the profession, whether in the form of harassment, threats or attacks, or interference with the exercise of professional duties (for example, obstacles to access to clients). … The Convention will be opened for signature on 13 May, on the occasion of the Council of Europe Foreign Affairs ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg. At least eight countries, including six member states of the Council of Europe, must ratify it for it to enter into force.” Read more here.

#12 “DOJ Launches ‘Immediate Review’ of Law Firms After Trump Memo.” From the Bloomberg Law: “The Justice Department is going after lawyers for ‘frivolous’ litigation against the government with a rarely used procedural tool aimed at punishing extreme behavior by attorneys. DOJ ‘began an immediate review of law firms who have participated in inappropriate activity and weaponized lawfare,’ after President Donald Trump directed the move in a March 21 memo, a department spokesperson said Monday. Trump instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue sanctions under a federal civil procedure rule—Rule 11—designed to deter lawyers and their clients from abusing the court process. Although judges are reluctant to hand down sanctions under the rule, it provides another line of attack for the Trump administration in its broadside against lawyers and firms that the president perceives as his enemies.” Read more here.

#13 “Federal Judiciary Creates New Task Force With Threats on the Rise” From the New York Times: “A task force of federal judges will consider how to respond to ‘current risks’ for the judiciary, following a spate of threats against judges who have ruled against the Trump administration.” Read more here (gift link).

#14 Attorneys General (21!), Bar Associations (70+!), Law Deans (80!), HLS Law Faculty (80+!), and Others Add Statements to Growing List Speaking Out Against the Trump Administration’s Threats to law firms and lawyers. Last week, eighty law deans issued a statement (here) as did more than seventy bar organizations (here). The Harvard Law faculty issued a jointly-signed letter, with separate commentary from professors Adrian Vermuele (here) and Lawrence Lessig (here). A letter organized by Democracy Forward, in conjunction with the Society for the Rule of Law Institute, called on Attorney General Bondi to oppose the use of the federal government to attack lawyers, law firms, and legal organizations. And twenty-one attorneys general wrote a “open letter” addressed “to the legal community” about the attacks on the legal profession and judiciary (here). For a complete list of 20+ statements issued since February, visit the Legal Ethics & Democracy Tracker.

#15 Lots of Op-Eds from Law Professors and Commentators on the Executive Orders. Here’s a list of what I encountered over the past couple of weeks — please let me know if something is missing:

• “Our Law Firm Won’t Cave to Trump. Who Will Join Us?” (03.30.25) By John W. Keker, Robert A. Van Nest, and Elliot R. Peters in the New York Times: “You can support a lawyer’s right to represent unpopular clients and causes against powerful forces — essentially the oath we all took when becoming members of the bar. Or you can sit back, check your bank balance and watch your freedoms, along with the legal system and the tripartite system of government we should not take for granted, swirl down the drain. … Lawyers and big firms: For God’s sake, stand up for the legal profession, and for the Constitution. Defend the oath you took when you became officers of the court. If we stand together and fight, we will win.” Read more here (gift link).

If lawyers and law firms won’t stand up for the rule of law, who will?

• “How Donald Trump Throttled Big Law.” (03.27.25) By Ruth Marcus in The New Yorker: “Yet, whatever the deal means for Paul, Weiss, its acquiescence to Trump marks a sad day for the legal profession—or what once was a profession, and is now just another business. It marks an even sadder day for the rule of law, which can only be vindicated when there are lawyers fearless enough to stand up for it, no matter the price.” Read more here (gift link).
• “Standing Up to Trump Is Good for Big Law’s Business. No, Really.” (03.27.25) By Ray Brescia (Albany) in Bloomberg Law: “Critics inside and out of the legal profession have derided Paul Weiss’ decision to reach an agreement so President Donald Trump would revoke an executive order punishing the firm for its past political actions and hobbling its ability to represent clients. Some begrudgingly have accepted the firm’s justification—that the potential to lose business was far too great. But no one should welcome a situation in which lawyers can be cowed by the US government. In fact, a client should seek out lawyers who will fight for their interests and rights without fear that doing so could anger the government.” Read more here.
• “Partisan Warfare is Pushing the American Legal System Toward Collapse.” (03.27.25) By Jay Edelson (Edelson PC) in The Hill: “As a center-left lawyer who has spent his career fighting powerful interests on behalf of everyday people, I find the current moment deeply alarming. Ironically, despite my skepticism of Big Law, the first line of defense is going to be these large firms, on whom we now must rely to protect both themselves and, by extension, the legal system as a whole from many of the powerful interests it has historically served. Yet conservatives rightly note these developments didn’t emerge spontaneously. Many of my friends on the left seem unaware of the backdrop that Trump’s supporters and allies point to in justifying or contextualizing his administration’s actions. Conservative judges have faced relentless personal attacks that go beyond legitimate criticism.” Read more here.
• “The Pathetic, Cowardly Collapse of Big Law; Trump’s Actions are an Attempt to Tilt the Scales Justice by Using the Raw Power of Government Coercion — and They’re Working.” (03.26.25) By Paul Rosenzweig (former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security) in The Atlantic: “Taken as a whole, this attack on law firms is nothing short of an assault on the very idea of an independent legal profession. For years, the profession has had a set of overarching principles that are thought to guide its members’ conduct. Among them: Clients should be able to hire whom they wish without worrying about government retribution, and lawyers should be free to zealously represent their clients without the threat of government retaliation. To say otherwise is to betray the fundamental value of fairness that undergirds our justice system. Trump’s actions are an attempt, bluntly speaking, to tilt the scales of justice by using the raw power of government coercion.” Read more here (gift link).
• “How Trump is Preemptively Neutralizing His Legal Opposition.” (03.26.25) By Richard Zitrin (Hastings) in the San Francisco Chronicle: “The threat to democracy from these acts is qualitatively different from any in our lifetimes.” Read more here.
• “They Are America’s Most Powerful Law Firms. Their Silence Is Deafening.” (03.25.25) By Deborah Pearlstein (Princeton) in the New York Times: “The choice by these firms to accommodate Mr. Trump’s attacks, either through action or silence, is deeply wrong. It weakens the rule-of-law system on which all Americans depend — a system in which the rules are publicly known and set in advance, not subject to the whims of arbitrary vendettas. … The choice is misguided as a business strategy, too, compromising attorney ethics, which can expose them to discipline by bar associations and courts, and giving clients ample reason to doubt that the firms will act unflinchingly in their defense.” Read more here (gift link).
• “Trump Can’t Stop Threatening Lawyers.” (03.24.25) By Barb McQuade (Michigan) in Bloomberg Law: “President Donald Trump’s retribution tour made its latest stop late Friday with a new threat to the legal profession. Trump issued a memorandum directing Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to prioritize the enforcement of regulations governing attorney conduct and discipline. The memo further instructs Bondi to seek sanctions against attorneys who engage in ‘frivolous litigation’ against the US ‘or in matters before executive departments and agencies of the United States.’ The attorney general also is to refer for disciplinary action lawyers who violate rules of professional conduct.” Read more here.
• “Paul Weiss Cut a Deal With Trump—That Doesn’t Mean It Caved.” (03.24.25) By Stephen Gillers (NYU) in Bloomberg Law: “There is a suggestion in the current debate that Paul Weiss was obligated to be brave for the rest of us, that it was required to fight Trump on behalf of the rule of law, and that its settlement was somehow a betrayal of some principle governing the conduct of private law firms. That is not so. Paul Weiss’ first obligation is to the courts that license its lawyers, then to its clients, many of whom have business or cases with the federal government, then to its staff of 2,500, and finally to its own survival. … The larger and unsettling truth here is that no law firm can stop Trump. Even the courts, to which lawyers have special access, are limited, as a practical matter and doctrinally, in what they can do. While other firms might have chosen (or hereafter choose) differently, we shouldn’t vent our anger and frustration at Trump by faulting Paul Weiss’s strategy to survive.” Read more here.
• “It’s Trump vs. the Courts, and It Won’t End Well for Trump.” (03.23.25) By J. Michael Luttig (former U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Judge) in the New York Times: “President Trump has wasted no time in his second term in declaring war on the nation’s federal judiciary, the country’s legal profession and the rule of law. He has provoked a constitutional crisis with his stunning frontal assault on the third branch of government and the American system of justice.” Read more here (gift link).
• “A Disgraceful Capitulation.” (03.21.25) By Brad Wendel (Cornell) at his Legal Ethics Stuff Substack: “Even worse, from my perspective as a legal ethics scholar, is the upside-down invocation of core professional ideals and principles to justify surrendering to an authoritarian leader. Brad Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss, reportedly sent an email to firm employees stating that he had merely reaffirmed a set of principles stated in 1963 by one of the firm’s founding partners. You be the judge of whether you think the terms of the agreement between the firm and Trump would be consistent with the ethical principles that a law firm should affirm.” Read more here.
• “The Law Must Not Bend to Trump’s Crusade of Political Retribution.”(03.19.25) By Austin Sarat (Amhurst) and Lauren Stiller Rikleen (Lawyers Defending Democracy) in The Hill: “These firms are putting profit over principle, worrying about their bottom line more than the looming collapse of the constitutional order. Lawyers should not sit on the sidelines as firms and judges are attacked merely for doing their jobs. The threat is clear. J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge, called Trump’s executive order directed against Perkins Coie ‘sinister’ — a part of a ‘full-frontal assault on the Constitution, the rule of law, our system of justice, and the entire legal profession.’” Read more here.
• “Bluff Justice.” (03.18.25) By Jeff Bleich (former US Ambassador to Australia) in Persuasion: “Americans are so used to having independent courts that it may be hard to imagine what it means when courts lose their independence. If courts are not independent, there is no free speech. Government critics or people with unpopular views are not protected from prosecution or assault. Freedom of religion doesn’t exist either, except for those who worship the religion acceptable to their leader. Corruption is rampant. Whatever people think they own or have is never truly theirs—the government or friends of the government can and do take whatever they want, whenever they want. Everyone outside the leader’s personal protection lives in fear.” Read more here.
• “Donald Trump’s All-Out Attack on Law Firms.” (03.17.25) By Bob Bauer in Executive Functions: “Trump’s motive in these specific cases is retaliatory, as the court concluded in issuing the TRO, but it is deeply rooted in his politics—a politics of sorting out who is with him, and who is against him, and of denying legitimacy to his foes. The determination of who is corrupt, unethical, or dishonest is his alone to make, on the basis of which he can impose severe sanctions and achieve intimidation through his exercise of presidential power. In a divinely sanctioned mission, he can violate no law when trying to ‘save the country.’ Williams and Connolly counsel to Perkins Coie, Dane Butswinkas, responded aptly at the hearing: ‘That is a different Constitution from the one I am familiar with.’” Read more here.

Where’s the Rest of the Roundup?

Revisit the “Welcome Back Edition” for an explanation of the new format. And keep an eye out for next month’s “First Monday Edition” with reading recommendations, analysis, reforms watch, jobs, events, and much more.

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Renee Knake Jefferson holds the endowed Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics and is a Professor of Law at the University of Houston. Check out more of her writing at the Legal Ethics Roundup. Find her on X (formerly Twitter) at @reneeknake or Bluesky at legalethics.bsky.social. 

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