{"id":46772,"date":"2026-03-03T18:51:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T18:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/big-law-thought-it-won-its-battle-with-trump-that-lasted-a-day\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T18:51:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T18:51:17","slug":"big-law-thought-it-won-its-battle-with-trump-that-lasted-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/big-law-thought-it-won-its-battle-with-trump-that-lasted-a-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Law thought it won its battle with Trump. That lasted a day."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69a72637fd4fbd083f29700f?format=jpeg\" alt=\"donald trump\"\/><figcaption>The Justice Department walked back its decision to drop an appeal of four judges&#039; decisions to strike down President Donald Trump&#039;s executive orders targeting Big Law firms.<\/p>\n<p>Kay Nietfeld\/picture alliance via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Four judges have said Trump&#039;s executive orders targeting law firms were unconstitutional.<\/li>\n<li>The DOJ on Monday said it would not appeal the rulings favoring Big Law firms.<\/li>\n<li>On Tuesday, the DOJ backtracked, saying it wants to move forward with an appeal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On Monday, the Justice Department waved a white flag, telling a court it would no longer try to justify President Donald Trump&#039;s executive orders targeting law firms.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the DOJ decided it was ready for battle again.<\/p>\n<p>The Justice Department filed a notice with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday afternoon, asking for permission to continue appealing lower court rulings that struck down Trump&#039;s executive orders.<\/p>\n<p>The filing came in a case that consolidated the Justice Department&#039;s appeals of rulings by four different district court judges who said Trump&#039;s executive orders targeting Perkins Coie, Jenner &amp; Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey were unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p>Trump issued the executive orders shortly after taking office last year. Had they gone into effect, they would have revoked security clearances for the firms&#039; attorneys, required a review of their government contracts, and may have barred the attorneys from entering federal government buildings.<\/p>\n<p>Nine other Big Law firms struck deals with the White House to avert similar executive orders targeting them. The deals require the firms to each contribute millions of dollars&#039; worth of pro bono work toward Trump&#039;s political priorities.<\/p>\n<p>Friday would have marked the deadline for the Justice Department to file a brief to convince the appellate court to overturn the lower court rulings invalidating the executive orders.<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s not clear whether the appellate court will allow the Justice Department to withdraw its decision to drop the appeal. All four law firms opposed the Justice Department&#039;s motion, according to the DOJ&#039;s Tuesday filing.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Yesterday evening, the Administration told the Court that it gave up and wouldn&#039;t even try to defend its unconstitutional executive orders,&quot; a Susman Godfrey spokesperson told Business Insider. &quot;Today, it reversed course. Regardless, Susman Godfrey will defend itself and the rule of law \u2014 without equivocation.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>A Perkins Coie spokesperson told Business Insider the Justice Department &quot;offered no explanation to either the parties or the court for its reversal.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We remain committed to defending our firm, our people, and our clients,&quot; the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Department representatives didn&#039;t immediately respond to Business Insider&#039;s request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Justice Department walked back its decision to drop an appeal of four judges&#039; decisions to strike down President Donald Trump&#039;s executive orders targeting Big Law firms. Kay Nietfeld\/picture alliance via Getty Images Four judges have said Trump&#039;s executive orders targeting law firms were unconstitutional. The DOJ on Monday said it would not appeal the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-46772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}