By early last week, federal courts in Washington, D.C., had issued three permanent injunctions against three Trump executive orders concerning law firms. Each court order was filled with outrage and, in one case, more than two dozen exclamation points. (We are still awaiting a decision on a fourth law firm’s motion for permanent relief.)
But not only are the law firms that formally fought back winning, but also those that capitulated are beginning to bleed key personnel and/or clients. For example, in the aftermath of Paul Weiss' bowing to Trump's demands, four of its partners left to start litigation boutique Dunn Isaacson Rhee LLP. Jeannie Rhee, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election as part of then-special counsel Robert Mueller's team, made her first court appearance under the auspices of their new shop Monday.
And according to The Wall Street Journal, some law firms that settled are now facing disgruntled clients, including McDonald’s, which appears to have fired high-profile Paul Weiss lawyer Loretta Lynch, a former U.S. attorney general, on the eve of trial; Citadel, the hedge fund run by well-documented GOP donor Ken Griffin; and Morgan Stanley. (According to the Journal, the law firms named in its reporting "declined to publicly discuss client matters.")
The Journal also reports that Trump remains interested in issuing more executive orders against law firms — but it seems he’s moved on to another type of legal target: the organizations that vet and screen judicial nominees.
What makes me think that? Well, last week, the Justice Department informed the American Bar Association that it would no longer have access to "non-public information" about judicial nominees. As Attorney General Pam Bondi’s letter explains, for “several decades,” the ABA's unique role in judicial nominations afforded it access to nominees’ bar records, their responses to its questionnaires and even interviews of them to assess their fitness and qualifications for judicial office. Now, Bondi has decreed, because the ABA’s “ratings invariably and demonstrably favor nominees put forth by Democratic administrations,” the ABA “no longer functions as a fair arbitrer of nominees’ qualifications,” and the DOJ will not direct, much less allow, nominees to engage in the ABA’s historic processes. The ABA has not yet commented on Bondi's letter.
One might assume the Bondi letter is just Trump world’s way of avenging the ABA’s rating 10 of Trump's judicial nominees as “unqualified” during his first term. It could also be an attempt to puncture the ABA’s credibility before his initial slate of judicial nominees have confirmation hearings.
But in light of Trump’s attack, just days later, on Leonard Leo, the longtime Federalist Society leader and the architect of Trump’s judicial selections in his first presidency, I think something bigger is going on. And that something bigger is not just a reflexive tantrum about the Court of International Trade’s rulings on his “emergency” tariffs, even if that case was fueled by a new libertarian group that Leo, among other conservative donors, has funded. Indeed, Trump and Leo reportedly have not even spoken since 2020.
Nor is it even about the apparent unwillingness of Leo's friends Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to retire from the Supreme Court before the 2026 elections. (Public reporting indicates both Thomas and Alito have hired full slates of clerks for the term beginning October and that Thomas has clerks lined up even for the 2027-2028 term.)
Rather, the Federalist Society and the ABA have long been the two most powerful outside influences on judicial nominations. Trump has never needed the ABA, but he doesn't mind minimizing its utility to Senate Democrats. As for the Federalist Society? As David French wrote for The New York Times, "when there is a conflict between conservative legal principles and Trump’s demands, conservative judges almost always adhere to their principles," something Trump cannot abide.
And in an era where fidelity to the whims of Trump is far more important than allegiance to any conservative legal agenda, much less the rule of law, Trump aims to be the sole arbiter of who’s qualified and fit for federal judgeships.
If Trump can reduce or even eliminate both the ABA's and the Federalist Society’s impact on the judicial selection process, he’ll become the only judge of judges who matters — which is exactly, I would posit, how he wants it.
