From the moment Donald Trump was sworn into office for his second term, he made clear that a major priority of his administration would be pursuing vindictive actions against his perceived enemies. One of the earliest targets of this agenda of retribution: law firms. In his first months in office, Trump signed executive orders that targeted firms that supported DEI, represented the Democratic Party, advocated for liberal causes, or employed prosecutors who had worked on former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump's 2016 campaign.
The first executive order signed by Lee will restrict federal immigration agents from using property owned or controlled by Oakland for processing, operations and ICE activities. This order closely mirrors legislation approved by Alameda County that bars federal immigration agents from using county property for enforcement activities.
I have great executive orders and they're really common sense and good. I mean, like water coming out of a sink. The water wouldn't come out. They had all sorts of ridiculous restrictions. I took all of that off. Coming out of the showerhead, you'd stand under a shower, there's no water coming out. So I passed so many things like that. Straws. They don't have to be paper anymore.
A contributing factor to this lack of productivity was President Donald Trump's increasing use of executive orders, often controversial and subject to multiple court challenges. So far in his second term, Trump has signed 224 executive orders, compared to the 52 he signed in 2017 and more than he did during his entire first term. President Joe Biden signed 76 in 2021, his first year in office.
the White House released the text of a sprawling executive order allegedly designed to ensure the integrity of U.S. elections. It demanded that states share their voter rolls with federal officials; mandated onerous proof-of-citizenship rules for people registering to vote (rules which didn't include drivers' licenses as valid forms of ID for this purpose); threatened local and state officials who didn't cooperate with this power grab with legal sanctions; and ostensibly outlawed the counting of any mail-in ballots received after Election Day.
On October 24, the National Weather Service Employees Organization (NWSEO) and the Patent Office Professional Association (POPA) filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that Executive Orders Nos. 14,251 and 14,343 unlawfully threaten employees' rights to organize and bargain collectively, not on the basis of "legitimate 'national security' issues," but to retaliate against unions such as NWSEO and POPA for their efforts to represent employees.
According to the ACLU, books "quarantined" by DoDEA schools included classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and Fahrenheit 451, more recent titles like The Kite Runner, A Queer History of the United States, the children's book Julián Is a Mermaid, and even Vice President JD Vance's 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy. Lawyers for the DOD reportedly argued that the removals constituted "government speech" and thus were shielded from First Amendment scrutiny.
Rhodes has been acting as a senior adviser to OFPP's parent agency, the Office of Management and Budget, since February with the responsibility of leading the Trump administration's push to restructure federal procurement. All but one section of the Federal Acquisition Regulation has been overhauled since then. OFPP and the FAR Council have collaborated on the effort and gradually rolled out the changes.
On Monday, the White House announced an executive order that designates "antifa" (short for anti-fascist) as a domestic terrorist organization. There's the obvious: anti-fascism isn't an organization - there's no chain of command or locus of operation that an organization would require to function. It is merely an idea - if you're against a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, you're an anti-fascist.
Armed with data from SurePoint Legal Insights about changes in headcount over the last six months, Lat concludes that "the Trump deals might be affecting, but not fundamentally altering, law firms' overall trajectories." Whether coincidence or cause and effect, or some combination thereof, a few stats are worth highlighting: On average, Am Law 100 firms saw attrition of -1.7% The five firms subjected to executive orders that did not capitulate averaged a 2.8% decline in headcount The nine firms that made deals with Trump averaged a 4.9% drop
As targets go, D.C. is almost too easy. The city has no governor who can legally object to the presence of federal troops, and its National Guard is already under the president's control. It seemed that maybe Trump was shifting tactics in response to ongoing litigation challenging his use of the National Guard to control protests in Los Angeles earlier this year. (Or maybe he was posturing in response to California Governor Gavin Newsom's devastatingly effective parodies.)
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he signs a series of executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House on August 25, 2025 in Washington, D.C.Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on Monday aimed at ending cashless bail and criminalizing flag burning protests - as reports say that the administration is arming national guard troops patrolling Washington, D.C., in a major escalation.
Donald Trump's efforts to defend the executive orders targeting Biglaw firms that have earned his ire are loser cases. Four different district court judges from across the political spectrum have all ruled that EOs aimed at Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey, respectively, are unconstitutional on a variety of grounds. Yet, the administration is appealing the Jenner & Block case, and the WilmerHale case, and the Perkins Coie one too.
One executive order issued by Trump directs Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to withhold federal money from sanctuary jurisdictions. Another order directs every federal agency to ensure that payments to state and local governments do not "abet so-called 'sanctuary' policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation." The cities and counties that sued said billions of dollars were at risk.
This month, Oklahoma's Attorney General joined with the U.S. Department of Justice in a lawsuit seeking to overturn an Oklahoma state law giving in-state higher education tuition rates to undocumented residents. The lawsuit piggybacks off a January executive order titled Protecting the American People Against Invasion, part of which required the Attorney General and the Department of Homeland Security to review contracts with organizations that continued to provide services to undocumented immigrants.
Since the 1980s, the executive director of the HBCUs initiative, established by President Jimmy Carter, has been responsible for advocating for HBCUs' federal policy interests.
Since its creation in 2000, the Oversight Project has launched more than 100,000 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from federal offices and agencies and more than 100 lawsuits against the Joe Biden administration.
"We hope this departure from Trump's anti-public lands agenda becomes the norm and isn't just a PR ploy to distract voters from the backlash some Republicans received after spending months trying to sell off these same public lands to the highest bidder."
