A federal district judge ruled in Perkins Coie v. U.S. Department of Justice that an executive order by President Donald Trump unlawfully retaliated against the law firm’s constitutionally protected speech and inhibited rights of association.
In addition to violating those First Amendment protections, the president’s executive order also violated due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment and the right to hire an attorney of one’s choice guaranteed in the Sixth Amendment, the ruling said.
Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court of D.C. issued her ruling on May 2, 2025, permanently enjoining the government from enforcing the president’s executive order against the law firm Perkins Coie LLP.
What was in Trump’s executive order against Perkins Coie
Trump had issued Executive Order 14230 entitled “Addressing Risks From Perkins Coie LLP” on March 6, 2025, as part of a series of orders against various law firms. The order was directed at punishing Perkins Coie, a large and prestigious law firm that had been founded in 1912 and that had brought cases on behalf of some of Trump’s political opponents.
Trump described what he characterized as “The dishonest and dangerous activity of the law firm Perkins Coie LLP.” He cited its representation of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; its work “with activist donors including George Soros to judicially overturn popular, necessary, and democratically enacted election laws, including those requiring voter identification”; and its support for “diversity, equity, and inclusion policies” that had led to what Trump described (without proof) as “blatant race-based and sex-based discrimination, including quotas.”
The order outlined penalties and actions against the firm, its attorneys and clients. They included:
- Suspending “any active security clearances held by individuals at Perkins Coie”; Terminating any contract “for which Perkins Coie has been hired to perform any service”;
- Requiring governmental contractors to disclose any affiliations with the firm, even those that did not involve government contracts;
- Initiating a review of any of the firm’s policies that the government thought might be discriminatory;
- Limiting access to of Perkins Coie employees to federal buildings; and
- Barring any firm members or former members from government employment.
Judge: An unconstitutional attempt to suppress, punish viewpoints
Howell has served on the D.C. district court since 2010. She was its chief judge from 2016 to 2023. Before issuing the permanent injunction, she had issued a temporary injunction against parts of the executive order on March 12, 2025.
Howell rested her 102-page permanent injunction on the First, Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
“No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies,” she wrote.
The executive order, she said, seemed drawn from “a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase [which he put in the mouth of a rebel leader who wanted to become king] to “kill all the lawyers.”
"Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power,” she wrote. She cited John Adams' defense of British soldiers in the Boston Massacre case and noted Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation that “the authority . . . intrusted to members of the legal profession . . . is the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy.”
Howell said the order “presents an unprecedented attack on these foundational principles” and found it to be an unconstitutional “attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints.”
Digging down into First Amendment and related issues
Much of the case centered on Trump’s accusations against the firm, which extended over several years and for which he had threatened retribution.
Howell examined arguments by the Trump Administration that the court lacked jurisdiction and that the issue was not ripe for its adjudication. She indicated that the law firm had standing because, in addition to the violation of its constitutional rights, it had suffered monetary damages from the loss of clients because of its inability to represent them in proceedings against the government.
At points in her decision, she indicated that “the mere threat of limited access … constitutes unconstitutional retaliation to suppress viewpoints with which the current presidential administration disagrees.”
Noting the language of Trump’s executive order in criticizing the law firm, which his attorneys had defended as “protected speech,” Howell observed that “While government officials may, under the First Amendment, ‘share [their] views freely and criticize particular beliefs,’ they may not ‘use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.’” She noted that “The claims that the government seeks to dismiss in this lawsuit challenge the use of governmental power, not governmental speech.” She characterized the attempted actions as “unlawful retaliation” against the firm’s speech. She observed that the “plaintiff does not challenge what the current Administration thinks about Plaintiff . . . but rather what the current Administration seeks to do to plaintiff based on that thinking.”
Judge: President can’t use power of state to suppress viewpoints
The judge rejected arguments that the government’s invocation of “the national interest” would immunize it from review. She observed that this “would represent a breathtaking expansion of executive power at the expense of the constitutionally mandated role of the judicial branch and the concomitant safeguards for the individual rights of Americans.” Citing judicial decisions involving viewpoint discrimination, she quoted a court decision that indicated that “a government official ‘cannot ... use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.’”
In examining the First Amendment, Howell observed that Trump was attempting to retaliate against the law firm “for having engaged in protected speech.” She tied the right of advocacy to the First Amendment right of petition and observed that “the plaintiff’s representation of a political opponent of the current President and involvement in election litigation and lawsuits against the Trump Administration explicitly qualifies as core First Amendment speech.”
Judge: Order violates First Amendment right of association
She also observed that the executive order was directed against the firm’s core First Amendment right of association. She noted that Trump had rescinded threatened penalties against other law firms that had complied with his wishes and that had offered pro bono services to the government.
She also pointed to the “stunning overbreadth” of the president’s retaliation and the vagueness as to when the government might extend waivers to the firm’s employees allowing them to litigate on behalf of the government or its contractors.
Howell was particularly concerned about a subsection of the order that required government contractors to disclose any business they do with the Perkins Coie law firm, even if the business was not part of a government contract.
“The right to hire and consult an attorney is protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, association and petition,” she wrote, adding that the order was not “narrowly tailored to any identifiable government interest in particular types of contracts, based on the nature of the goods or services provided to the government or even the amount of government funds committed.”
Howell said that the order violated the constitution’s equal protection clause by singling out one firm for stricter scrutiny and harsher treatment than others.
Howell also believed that the executive order violated the right to due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. The sanctions against the law firm, she said, impeded the guarantee to the Sixth Amendment’s right of the counsel of one’s choice.
Howell cited a number of Supreme Court rulings in making her decision. They indicated that the president had no power to “subject individuals to ‘retaliatory actions’ after the fact for having engaged in protected speech” and that it “may neither ‘use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression’ . . . nor engage in the use of ‘purely personal and arbitrary power.’”
Ruling noteworthy for condemning government retaliation
This is a strongly worded decision based on numerous constitutional protections that are found not only in the First Amendment but also in other parts of the Bill of Rights. It is especially noteworthy for the manner in which it condemns governmental retaliation for the exercise of First Amendment rights and for the manner in which it connects First Amendment rights of speech and association to the Fifth Amendment requirement for due process and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
Trump will likely appeal the decision, in part because the reasoning will likely undermine the authority of many of his other executive orders. Unfortunately for Trump, Judge Howell and other federal judges have expressed increased skepticism about the arguments that Trump’s attorneys have brought before them in other cases related to executive orders, especially with regard to immigration (Berman and Roebuck 2025).
In the meantime, by lifting the order against Perkins Coie, the decision might also provide an escape hatch for firms that had promised to supply pro bono work to the government and change their personnel policies in exchange for exemption from his retaliatory actions.
The case highlights the important role that attorneys can play in upholding First Amendment freedoms and other constitutional protections for civil rights and liberties.
John R. Vile is a political science professor and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University.