Two judges appointed by former President Barack Obama and another who worked in the first Trump administration will decide whether to overturn lower court rulings blocking White House orders targeting Big Law firms.
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit assigned Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judges Cornelia Pillard and Neomi Rao to the panel that will hear arguments on May 14 in the combined case. The Justice Department is appealing district court rulings striking down executive orders in which President Donald Trump targeted four firms—Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey—over their ties to lawyers he views as enemies and cases he opposes.
The panel’s assignment sets the stage for the next round in the fight over Trump’s attacks on law firms for what he calls national security risks and illegal discrimination. Trump’s orders, which targeted the firms’ access to federal buildings and classified material among other measures, have shaken the legal industry, compelling nine of the largest law firms to pledge free legal services to avoid punitive action.
A former O’Melveny & Myers partner, Srinivasan was principal deputy solicitor general when Obama appointed him to serve on the DC Circuit in 2013. He became chief judge in 2020. Pillard was appointed by Obama in 2013 having served as deputy assistant attorney general in DOJ’s office of legal counsel and assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Rao ran the regulatory arm for the White House Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term. Trump nominated her in 2018 for an appeals court seat made vacant when Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed for the Supreme Court.
Trump accused the four firms of weaponizing the legal system for partisan ends and discriminating against job applicants in their diversity initiatives. The orders called on agencies to revoke lawyers’ security clearances, scrutinize federal contractors for ties to the firms, and block firm employees from entering government buildings.
The firms convinced four federal DC judges—two George W. Bush nominees, one nominated by Obama, and one nominated by Joe Biden—to block the orders as unconstitutional. The judges found that the orders violated the firms’ right to free speech and due process, as well as their clients right to choose counsel.
DOJ signaled in March that it planned to abandon its appeal of the decisions, only to walk back the move less than 24 hours later.
The judges assigned to hear the appeal have overseen some of the most watched legal fights involving government power during the last two decades.
On Tuesday, Rao ruled with another Trump-appointee to end DC District Chief Judge James Boasberg’s effort to hold Trump administration officials in contempt for flouting his orders to halt the deportation of migrants. She wrote the 2020 majority opinion that dismissed criminal charges against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had pled guilty to lying to the FBI.
Rao was at odds with Pillard in last year’s split decision to reinstate FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, a Democrat member fired by Trump. Pillard sided with the majority opinion to temporarily send Slaughter back to her job, while Rao dissented in favor of the Trump administration. Slaughter’s case is pending before the US Supreme Court.
In one of Pillard’s early cases on the DC Circuit, she wrote the unanimous decision that upheld an opt-out compromise in Obamacare’s birth control mandate. Srinivasan wrote the unanimous opinion allowing lawsuits against Trump by police officers and Democratic members of Congress arising out of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack to proceed.
The judicial panel will also hear arguments in another case involving a Trump enemy in the legal field on the same day as the combined Big Law appeal. Mark Zaid, the national security lawyer who represented the whistleblower whose allegations led to Trump’s first impeachment, sued to reclaim his security clearance. DOJ appealed his win.
The case is: Perkins Coie v. DOJ, D.C. Cir., 25-05241, 4/14/26
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Learn more about Bloomberg Law or Log In to keep reading:
See Breaking News in Context
Bloomberg Law provides trusted coverage of current events enhanced with legal analysis.
Already a subscriber?
Log in to keep reading or access research tools and resources.