On April 4, 2025, Keller Grover LLP joined more than 500 law firms across the country in signing a “Friend of the Court” brief in support of Perkins Coie LLP, which filed a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s Executive Order restricting the firm’s lawyers from, among other things, entering federal buildings, including courthouses. We are proud to come together with our professional colleagues from firms large and small, who work with us in some cases and are adversaries in others, in taking this stand.
The unprecedented Executive Order singling out one law firm stems from Perkins Coie’s lawful representation of Hillary Clinton nearly a decade ago. The Executive Order is blatantly unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment, ignores fundamental due process rights and undermines the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. As stated in the brief:
Something even more fundamental is at stake. In recent weeks, the President has issued not one but five executive orders imposing punitive sanctions on leading law firms in undisguised retaliation for representation that the firm, or its former partners, have undertaken, and more may be in the offing. Those orders pose a grave threat to our system of constitutional governance and to the rule of law itself.
At the hearing where she temporarily blocked the Executive Order from going into effect, United States District Judge Beryl A. Howell noted that it “sends a chill down my spine.”
Joining the fight against this threat is an extension of the zealous advocacy the lawyers at Keller Grover have provided to our clients in the past and will continue to provide in the future. Indeed, as lawyers it is first and foremost our sworn duty to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
As Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to serve in both houses of the U.S. Congress and the first woman to run for the Republican presidential nomination, said:
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by … words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism–
The right to criticize.
The right to hold unpopular beliefs.
The right to protest.
The right of independent thought.
The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us does not? Otherwise, none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in.