Zicklin Students Gain Front-Row Insights into Trump Administration’s Attacks on Major Law Firms

The word “unprecedented” could be heard repeatedly on the seventh floor of the Information and Technology Building one evening in late October, uttered by a group of experts who were discussing the federal government’s targeting of major U.S. law firms. 

The occasion was “Big Law in the Trump Era,” an event organized by the Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity and co-sponsored by the Baruch Pre-Law Society and the Max Berger Pre-Law Program. David Rosenberg, director of the Zicklin Center and associate professor of law at the Zicklin School, moderated the discussion.  

From left: Rosenberg, Khardori, Roiphe, Clark

The three panelists were Ankush Khardori, a senior writer and columnist at Politico; Rebecca Roiphe, a New York Law School professor; and Christopher J. Clark, a partner at Clark Smith Villazor. All three are attorneys who have worked as prosecutors.  

Attorney-turned-journalist Khardori provided detailed background to the discussion: Shortly after taking office, President Trump issued a series of executive orders (EOs) attacking Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison and other law firms in retaliation for said firms having taken action against his administration (in Paul, Weiss’s case, the firm had brought a pro bono suit against people allegedly involved in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol). The EOs stripped attorneys of their security clearances and barred them from entering federal buildings, which rendered them unable to represent certain clients, as they could not enter federal courthouses.  

If the petty nature of Trump’s retaliations wasn’t shocking enough—several of the Paul, Weiss attorneys targeted, for example, left the firm years ago—what happened next was dumbfounding, at least to the panelists: Paul, Weiss capitulated, and eight other firms followed suit. They agreed to shift away from diversity and inclusion in their recruiting and hiring practices and to do tens of millions of dollars’ worth of pro bono (i.e., free) representation in Trump-friendly matters such as veterans’ affairs.  

The panelists discussed the ramifications of these tumultuous events. Several opined that the EOs were, as Clark put it, “wildly unconstitutional” because they went against freedoms of speech, petition, and assembly, as well as the doctrine of separation of powers. Khardori, for one, predicted that the EOs would eventually be overturned.  

But it may not matter much, as the EOs have already had a chilling effect on the profession. With Trump an active litigant in dozens of cases, anyone being targeted by the president is facing difficulty finding adequate legal representation, said Clark (whose firm represented Hunter Biden).  

Law professor Roiphe, an ethics expert, said that the EOs had undermined the “fundamental principle” that “even the worst people deserve [legal] representation.” This concept dates back to 1770, when future Founding Father John Adams agreed without hesitation to represent the British soldiers charged with the Boston Massacre because of his belief that everyone has the right to an attorney and a fair trial.  

The audience of Zicklin students and alumni listened intently to the high-level discussion and asked intelligent questions afterwards. Alumnus Michael Kawochka (MBA, ’99), for example, brought up U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s failure to disclose expensive gifts, asking, “Is this the same problem we’re discussing here, or is it something else?” (Panelists’ opinions differed.)   

In the end, a remark Rosenberg made almost in passing may provide a key to what is happening to the legal profession. He pointed out that two panelists had mentioned “lists” being kept of lawyers and firms challenging Trump and the EOs. “Keeping track of what people do and say and the work they do . . . . That sounds like [Joseph] McCarthy,” he observed.

So perhaps the president’s actions aren’t so unprecedented after all.  

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