Trump’s New Attack on Attorneys Draws Rebuke From Two Law Firms

Two well-known litigation firms are slamming President Donald Trump’s latest move to sanction lawyers.

Trump in a March 22 memo directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue sanctions and disciplinary actions against opposing lawyers who “engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States.” He instructed the Justice Department to look back eight years for misconduct that could be punished by revoking security clearances and federal contracts for lawyers and their firms.

New York-founded litigation boutique Selendy Gay “rejects the notion that the government can punish lawyers for their choice of clients,” it said in a statement on Sunday. The firm, which won a $1 billion suit against Johnson & Johnson last year, is suing the Trump administration to stop the termination of job protections for career federal government employees.

The DOJ directive is “inexcusable and despicable,” the leaders of San Francisco’s Keker Van Nest said in a statement. The “memo underscores how far removed this president, attorney general and administration are from our nation’s Constitution and bedrock values,” they said. “Our liberties depend on lawyers’ willingness to represent unpopular people and causes.”

The boutique, whose clients have included Google and Intel, has six active lawsuits against the Trump administration over Trump’s various moves to overhaul the federal government. “Our profession owes every client zealous legal representation without fear of retribution, regardless of their political affiliation or ability to pay,” the firm’s leaders said.

Trump’s memo broadens his attack on law firm conduct he views as suspect, including representation of lawyers who investigated him in the past. The president’s allies have joined in the criticism of firms. Elon Musk told Skadden to stop working on a case against Dinesh D’Souza—a conservative commentator who was pardoned in 2018—by a Georgia man who says D’Souza wrongly accused him of voter fraud.

“Skadden, this needs to stop now,” Musk said in a Sunday post on X.

Big Law firms have been quiet since Trump began targeting some of the legal industry’s top players with a Feb. 25 directive against Covington & Burling over its ties to former special counsel Jack Smith.

The March 22 order also cited Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias’ involvement in the so-called Steele dossier as an example of “grossly unethical misconduct.” Trump also mentioned Elias, who ran Perkins Coie’s political group, in a March 6 executive order and called him a “radical” in a speech at the Justice Department.

Elias is using the attention from Trump as a hiring tool via LinkedIn.

“If you want to work for a law firm that will never bow down to Trump or stay silent when he attacks the legal system, we are hiring,” Elias said Sunday.