'This is how you stand up': Legal group lauded as it urges law firms not to stay 'silent'
A growing list of bar associations and legal groups are willing to fight back against President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's attempts to punish judges with whom they disagree and target law firms.
"We support the right of people to advance their interests in courts of law when they have been wronged. We reject the notion that the U.S. government can punish lawyers and law firms who represent certain clients or punish judges who rule certain ways. We cannot accept government actions that seek to twist the scales of justice in this manner," said a letter signed by more than 60 groups on the American Bar Association's website.
While Trump and GOP lawmakers have targeted federal judges, Trump has also signed executive orders singling out specific law firms.
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"Many firms are afraid that if they are targeted by Trump, it could devastate their business if both clients and partners flee, reconfiguring the centers of power in Washington’s most influential private industry," CNN reported Thursday.
Trump targeted the firm Jenner & Block, a large "white-shoe" law firm that previously employed Andrew Weissmann, who served as a long-time deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia election interference probe. The order explicitly attacks Weissmann using his name.
Other firms include Perkins Coie; Covington & Burling; and Paul, Weiss, Wharton, Rifkin & Garrison. Many of the lawyers working for those firms have had their national security clearances suspended. It puts them at a disadvantage when working for some clients.
Last week, the powerful law firm Paul Weiss caved into Trump, NBC News reported. They promised to "give Donald Trump’s administration $40 million in free legal work for causes the president supports and, according to a social media post from Trump, get rid of any internal diversity, equity and inclusion policies."
"There are clear choices facing our profession," the letter from the ABA groups states. "We can choose to remain silent and allow these acts to continue or we can stand for the rule of law and the values we hold dear. We call upon the entire profession, including lawyers in private practice from Main Street to Wall Street, as well as those in corporations and who serve in elected positions, to speak out against intimidation."
Elections law crusader Marc Elias has been one of the legal experts calling out the big law firms too frightened to fight back. Earlier this month, Elias told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, "That's fine, you know, be afraid, but if ultimately you think being a lawyer and the oath you took means, you know, avoiding representing people, being targeted by the powerful and by the federal government, then I just don't understand why you became a lawyer.”
Microeconomist Georg Weizsäcker cheered, "The bar associations got their act together."
"THIS IS HOW YOU STAND UP," Oscar-nominated director Julia Cohen wrote in all capital letters on Blue Sky.
Legal scholar Heidi Li Feldman similarly celebrated, "Go American Bar Association!"
Others lamented that a statement like that would ever need to be written in the first place.
The list of local, county, city and state bar associations willing to sign onto the letter continues to grow.