WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration was hit with another lawsuit on Friday over his executive orders sanctioning prominent law firms, even as five other firms offered costly concessions to avoid the president’s crackdowns.
Susman Godfrey filed the lawsuit in Washington to challenge an executive order that it said violated its rights under the U.S. Constitution, becoming the fourth firm targeted by Trump to sue the administration in response.
“If President Trump’s Executive Orders are allowed to stand, future presidents will face no constraint when they seek to retaliate against a different set of perceived foes,” the lawsuit said.
Susman Godfrey accused Trump of trying to “exact revenge” on the firm, which has represented Dominion Voting Systems in defamation cases related to the president’s false claims that the 2020 U.S. election was rigged.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
Trump’s executive orders against the firms restricted their lawyers from accessing government buildings and officials and threatened their clients’ federal contracts, citing their connections to his perceived enemies or cases he opposes.
Trump earlier on Friday said five other firms facing pressure from the administration had reached deals to devote a at least $600 million in free legal work to causes he supports, bringing the total pledges he has received to $940 million since last month.
The agreements mostly mirror others struck with four firms in recent weeks, requiring them to shun diversity-based employment practices the administration deems illegal and work on pro bono projects approved by the president.
Kirkland & Ellis, A&O Shearman, Simpson Thacher and Latham & Watkins are set to provide $125 million in pro bono work each. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft would provide at least $100 million, Trump said in posts on his Truth Social account.
Trump said at a cabinet meeting on Thursday that firms that settled with him “have paid me a lot of money in the form of legal fees” and that he may press them into service negotiating trade deals amid the White House’s aggressive tariff rollouts.
The president on Friday also said the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has withdrawn a probe into employment practices at Kirkland, A&O Shearman, Simpson Thacher and Latham as part of the agreements.
Spokespeople for the five firms declined to comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kirkland’s executive committee and Simpson Thacher chairman Alden Millard said in internal memos obtained by Reuters on Friday that their agreements would not force them to relinquish control over the pro bono cases they handle.
Millard wrote that the firm had made a “strategic decision” to remove the threat of an executive order.
Kirkland and Simpson Thacher and at least two of the other settling firms were involved in litigation challenging Trump’s policies in his first term, related to issues such as voting and transgender rights or immigration.
“Big Law continues to bend the knee to President Trump because they know they were wrong, and he looks forward to putting their pro bono legal concessions toward implementing his America First agenda,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
DIVIDED RESPONSE
The Trump administration already faced lawsuits by Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and Jenner & Block over executive orders against them, and each quickly won rulings that said the orders likely violated constitutional protections for speech and due process.
Trump agreed to rescind an executive order against Paul Weiss after it became the first to settle with the White House, agreeing to donate $40 million in pro bono work.
Skadden Arps, Milbank and Willkie Farr reached similar deals without an executive order being issued against them, each agreeing to earmark $100 million in pro bono services for mutually agreed projects with the administration.
More than 800 law firms and lawyers signed onto a court brief on Friday supporting the legal challenges to Trump’s executive orders, calling them “undisguised retaliation” that threatened to put the firms out of business.
The attorneys general of 20 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia also filed briefs in two of the firms’ cases, warning that Trump’s actions could make it harder for vulnerable groups to secure legal representation.
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella, Sara Merken, David Thomas, Brendan O’Brien and Sarah Morland; Writing by David Bario; Editing by Katharine Jackson, Alistair Bell and Deepa Babington)
By Mike Scarcella, Sara Merken and David Thomas
