ABA Takes Aim at Trump Policies on Law Firms and Immigration

The nation’s largest voluntary bar shows it's serious about opposing White House policies it says threaten the rule of law.

ABA fires back at Trump headline
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David L. Brown

August 22, 2025 05:00 AM

The American Bar Association and the Trump administration have been at odds since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January.

Federal agencies have banned appointees from participating in ABA events, holding leadership positions in the organization, or renewing memberships. The attorney general has undercut the ABA’s traditional role in vetting judge candidates. And a Trump executive order in April threatened the ABA’s status as a law school accreditor.

Now, the ABA’s governing body is firing back. The nearly 600-member House of Delegates, which makes policy decisions for the association, has issued a series of resolutions taking the Trump administration to task over efforts to punish law firms, First Amendment violations, and its immigration enforcement tactics.

While largely symbolic, the resolutions—adopted at the ABA’s annual meeting in Toronto—make clear that the nation’s largest voluntary bar is serious about opposing Trump policies it believes threaten the rule of law. And it gives the organization’s leadership a green light to consider and pursue more concrete actions—including litigation.

A Constitutional Fight

One key resolution makes it ABA policy to oppose “efforts by any government actor to punish or threaten to punish lawyers, law firms, or other organizations for representing or having represented any particular client or cause disfavored by the government.” In addition, the organization will fight “threats or efforts” to impeach judges “based solely on disagreement with the merits of the rulings made by those judges.”

The resolution also underlines the ABA’s support for constitutional freedoms of speech, access to the courts, and the right to petition the government for redress. It states that lawyers, law firms, and the legal profession “should ensure that counsel is available to those who need it and especially to clients who cannot afford to pay for counsel.”

Several firms targeted by Trump in executive orders have successfully fought back, the report noted, with the support of hundreds of other law firms and former judges. However, “other prestigious firms, similarly targeted because of the clients or causes they represented, succumbed to the administration’s financial and professional pressure.”

“The rule of law is central to the safeguarding of American democracy and American prosperity. But it will not long survive if lawyers and law firms are threatened and punished for doing their jobs and if judges are threatened with punishment for doing their jobs,” a report accompanying the resolution said.

Punishing Firms

Beginning in February, President Trump issued a series of executive orders aimed at punishing law firms and individual lawyers that had worked on matters at odds with the administration and its allies.

The targeted firms and lawyers had advocated for the rights of immigrants, women, and LGBTQ+ individuals, were involved in investigations or prosecutions of Trump, donated to causes the administration opposed or challenged, or engaged in “other disfavored forms of expression,” such as advocating for diversity in the legal profession, according to an ABA court filing.

The executive orders essentially blacklisted the firms, cutting off their access to the federal government. Trump also accused the firms of using diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs to discriminate against employees and called for a regulatory probe into hiring practices at several major firms.

Trump struck deals with nine major firms, extracting promises of nearly $1 billion in administration-supported pro bono work and to end or sharply curtail DEI efforts. Four others—Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block, and Susman Godfrey—fought the orders and won trial court injunctions to halt the executive orders from taking effect.

No Actions in Four Months

In June, the ABA filed suit saying the executive orders constituted a “law firm intimidation policy” that violated law firms’ First Amendment rights, overstepped the president’s constitutional authority, and deliberately chilled work by lawyers across the profession on matters that might prompt government retaliation. The ABA is asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to declare Trump’s orders unconstitutional and to permanently enjoin the government from enforcing them.

On Aug. 8, the government filed a reply asserting that the ABA lacks standing to bring the case and that its claims were overly broad. “The ABA’s sprawling complaint names as defendants vast swaths of the federal government…[and] seeks to prospectively prevent the issuance or implementation of any future [executive orders] like the ones the president issued,” lawyers from the Department of Justice’s Civil Division wrote.

The government’s response also appears to signal that the administration’s appetite for issuing law firm-centric executive orders may be waning. The DOJ’s lawyers argue that the ABA is seeking to “enjoin a potential future [executive order] that has not been promulgated—and that may never be promulgated.” Noting that the last order was issued “over four months ago in the spring of 2025,” the government’s lawyers wrote that the ABA’s complaint is premature because another law firm-related executive order “may never happen.”

Diversity-Related Revisions

Nonetheless, the executive orders continue to reverberate. Even the ABA House of Delegates has been forced to recalibrate its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. The organization’s bylaws had required the House of Delegates’ governing board to include at least five diversity seats comprised of “two women, two racially or ethnically diverse persons, or and one person who self-identifies either as LGBTQ+ or as having a disability.”

On Aug. 12, however, the House of Delegates voted to change the language to a more general statement that the board should include members with a “demonstrated commitment to Goal III and advancing the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Goal III, adopted by the House of Delegates in 2008, aims to promote “full and equal participation in the association, our profession, and the justice system by all persons…[and] eliminate bias in the legal profession and the justice system.”

In evaluating candidates for the diversity seats, the board should look at relevant DEI-oriented qualifications like “involvement in groups or initiatives, lived experience, professional work, or obstacles overcome and resilience developed.”

The Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI efforts is not mentioned in the ABA’s report on the change. Instead, the organization said that “by opening these seats up to all members,” it hopes that “every ABA member who has diligently worked to advance Goal III has an opportunity to serve in the governing bodies of the association.”

Rethinking DEI Positions

At law firms, too, challenges by the Trump administration are roiling the market for professionals who have helped implement and administer DEI programs.

A few large firms have posted open DEI jobs, “but the quantity of open positions has declined, making each posting more competitive, According to The American Lawyer reported.

Firms are declining to identify themselves in job postings until after candidates apply. They are also giving DEI positions new titles that make them more about “inclusiveness” and less about targeting “ethnic minorities or the LGBTQ community or white women” for the roles.

In some cases, however, firms are cutting back. Positions specifically aimed at collecting or analyzing law firm demographics are being culled as “some firms pull back from maintaining information that could invite government scrutiny or civil actions,” The American Lawyer reported.

As one recruiter who focuses on diversity candidates told the magazine, current DEI professionals may “see a shrinking of opportunities” and may need to look for other roles where their skills will transfer.

First Amendment and Immigration Issues

All told, the House of Delegates approved more than 50 policy resolutions at the ABA’s annual meeting. Many of the resolutions opposed administration measures or offered support to groups who have been targeted by Trump officials, particularly for exercising their First Amendment rights.

One resolution supports the academic freedom of American universities, colleges and law schools and “opposes governmental efforts to impose the government’s viewpoint with respect to the academic qualifications of students or faculty or the content of curricula or specific courses.” Another urges the federal government to enact legislation and regulations recognizing a reporter’s privilege that enables journalists to protect their unpublished work product. A third resolution highlights “the First Amendment rights of public employees at all levels of government to speak about matters of public concern without fear of retaliation.”

Immigration issues were also top of mind. Delegates said the federal government should ensure all due process protections—including meaningful notice, opportunity to be heard and access to legal counsel—are followed in immigration-related cases. Detention of immigrants in Department of Defense facilities, such as the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, should be prohibited. And agents should avoid immigration enforcement operations in or around sensitive locations, such as hospitals, schools, houses of worship, demonstrations and public safety agencies.

Funding Withheld

The resolutions come as legal battles over the administration’s immigration policies continue to escalate. Federal officials filed an emergency order Aug. 7 asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Southern California trial court’s decision that temporarily blocked agents from detaining or stopping people in the region based upon alleged racial profiling.

The court, citing the Fourth Amendment, said that using race, ethnicity, language, accent, and similar factors was insufficient to establish a reasonable suspicion of illegal behavior. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected an appeal by the government Aug. 1, which argues the district court’s order “significantly interferes” with federal enforcement efforts across the region.

In another case, filed Aug. 18, attorneys general from 20 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration over plans to deny more than $1 billion in federal grant money to states that refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement actions.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, the suit says money intended for crime victims under the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) is being illegally withheld by the Department of Justice. The states are asking the court to prevent the federal government from implementing and enforcing the policy. The money, they say, provides critical resources and services to victims and survivors of crime, including victim and witness advocacy services, emergency shelter, sexual assault forensic exams, medical, funeral, and burial expenses, and compensation for lost wages.

“Defendants’ brazen attempt to manipulate critical funding for crime victims to strong-arm states into supporting the administration’s immigration policies runs headlong into two basic principles of American governance: separation of powers and federalism,” the lawsuit said. “Nothing in VOCA or any other statute authorizes USDOJ to impose immigration-related funding conditions on grant programs intended to support the victims of crime.”

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David L. Brown is a legal affairs writer and consultant, who has served as head of editorial at ALM Media, editor-in-chief of The National Law Journal and Legal Times, and executive editor of The American Lawyer. He consults on thought leadership strategy and creates in-depth content for legal industry clients and works closely with Best Law Firms as senior content consultant.

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