Trump’s attacks on law firms are an attack on law itself | David Cole and Amrit Singh

In unprecedented orders, the president is targeting lawyers simply for filing cases he opposes. And firms are surrendering

If you are systematically engaged in lawbreaking, lawyers can be very annoying. They sue, and their suits may lead courts to declare your actions illegal.

So Donald Trump, who has launched his second term with a blizzard of blatantly illegal actions, many of which have been suspended by the courts, has decided to address the problem at its root. He’s targeting lawyers, punishing them for doing nothing more than filing lawsuits he opposes, or hiring lawyers he does not like. He has issued unprecedented executive orders penalizing five of the nation’s major law firms, and more are likely to come. These tactics, blatantly illegal, are designed with one goal in mind: to chill lawyers’ willingness to challenge his illegal actions. They are a fundamental attack on the foundation of the rule of law. And they are achieving their purpose, not because they are legal – they obviously are not – but because too many law firms are surrendering to Trump’s illegal demands.

David Cole is a professor at Georgetown Law and former legal director of the ACLU. Amrit Singh is a law professor and executive director of the Rule of Law Impact Lab at Stanford Law School