Baala Shakya, Staff Photographer

Amidst President Donald Trump’s attack on law firms across the country, a Yale Law School Clinic is representing 27 former senior government officials from bipartisan backgrounds in an amicus brief supporting Perkins Coie in its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice. 

The amicus brief challenges the constitutionality of Trump’s March 6 executive order, which targets Perkins Coie. This order fits into the larger trend of the Trump administration sanctioning law firms and lawyers that have represented the president’s political enemies. 

“In their decades of government service, amici have never before seen or condoned an ad hominem punitive, and retaliatory order of this kind, attacking and intimidating lawyers and a law firm on the basis of their lawful activities,” the brief reads. 

Since being filed on April 8, the Law Clinic and Susman Godfrey have filed the same amicus brief in two related cases involving lawsuits from WilmerHale and Jenner & Block, other law firms that have been targeted by Trump’s executive orders. 

The brief argues, firstly, that there is no power in either an act of Congress or in the Constitution that grants the President this ability to target individual law firms through executive order. Secondly, the brief asserts that the executive order is an unlawful bill of attainder — a law that targets a specific person or group. 

The Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic has been recently resurrected after a period of dormancy, inspired by law students’ desire to aid in defending the rule of law against attacks from the Trump administration. It was founded in 2016 by professor Michael Wishnie ’87 LAW ’93 and former Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh. 

“[The clinic] demonstrates the will and passion that Yale Law students have towards their belief in the rule of law and ensuring that it’s upheld, even when it’s strongly challenged,” said Brady Worthington LAW ’27, a student who worked on the brief.  

The Rule of Law Clinic is joined in representing the amici by Susman Godfrey LLP, founded by Steve Susman ’62. On April 9, Trump filed an executive order attacking Susman Godfrey, suspending security clearances for individuals at the law firm. 

The list of amici includes 27 former government officials from across the aisle, something that Worthington noted he is “particularly proud of.” The officials have worked across seven decades of presidential administrations, both Republican and Democrat. 

“They all have come together to agree with this argument that this executive order is unconstitutional,” said Worthington. 

While the clinic was initially founded in 2016, it had gone dormant prior to last semester. After the election, YLS students sought to revive the clinic in order to defend the rule of law against the incoming Trump administration. 

Inbar Pe’er LAW ’25 noted that the resurrection was inspired by “students wanting to take action in the face of what we anticipated would be a mounting assault on the rule of law.” 

Pe’er added that students were inspired to use their legal education in an effort to combat visible attacks on the rule of law at the national level. 

Emily Elledge LAW ’26 stated that one of the main goals of filing an amicus brief is to look at filling gaps in the existing lawsuits, a role suited for students and law clinics. 

“I think the clinics have filled an important role for a lot of students that felt powerless to do anything while at law school. And this is just a small way that people can contribute to this larger fight that’s happening outside of YLS,” said Elledge. 

The Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic was also involved in filing an amicus brief on February 14th that supports the plaintiffs in Nicholas Talbott v. Donald J. Trump. The brief represents former secretaries of the Air Force and Army and argues against the legality of Trump’s executive order that would restrict transgender individuals from enlisting or continuing military service. 

Alongside the amicus brief supporting Perkins Coie, Pe’er, Fred Halbhuber LAW ’25 and Koh authored a piece in Just Security outlining the main legal arguments of the filing. The article discusses how bills of attainder are forbidden in the Constitution. 

Pe’er, Halbhuber and Koh argue that these executive orders both violate constitutional rights and the Constitution’s structure as the orders are “ultra vires, because they were based on no valid national security concern, issued without any colorable legal authority, and unconstitutionally interfere with the separation of powers.”

“Every Yale student knows that before Whalley, Goffe, and Dixwell became the names of local streets, they were English judges who found a ‘New Haven’ in 1661, after fleeing here to escape retaliation by a vengeful king. It is unthinkable that the early Americans who followed them to frame our Constitution intended to grant the U.S. president a unilateral power to punish enemies that even English kings did not possess,” Koh wrote in a separate comment. 

In looking to the future, Halbhuber cited that the clinic will expand going forward, picking up additional student support and engagement. 

“I think now that we’ve learned some lessons from the past few weeks and months we can hit the ground running,” said Halbhuber. 

The Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic at Yale Law School was founded in 2016.