The US justice department abruptly reversed course on Tuesday and decided it would defend executive orders made by Donald Trump to try to penalize law firms that represented clients or causes the president did not like.
On Monday, the department announced in a court filing that it was dropping its appeal against a ruling by a district court judge that blocked Trump’s retaliatory executive actions against four companies that refused to make a deal with him.
Trump’s “capitulation” was celebrated by at least two of the the companies that welcomed the DoJ’s voluntary withdrawal from the legal proceedings.
On Tuesday, however, the government filed a new, single-paragraph request to the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, announcing it had changed its mind, and wished “to pursue this appeal”.
It gave no reason for its sudden about-face, and quoted attorneys for the four companies who unanimously opposed “the government’s unexplained request to withdraw yesterday’s voluntary dismissal, to which all parties had agreed”.
In a statement, Susman Godfrey, one of the four law firms that initially stood up to Trump, said: “Yesterday evening, the administration told the court that it gave up and wouldn’t even try to defend its unconstitutional executive orders. Today, it reversed course. Regardless, Susman Godfrey will defend itself and the rule of law – without equivocation.”
There was no immediate comment from the White House or justice department.
A number of other law companies made settlements with Trump’s administration in the months after his second presidency began to avoid consequences, including being stripped of security clearances and having access to government buildings terminated.
Critics called the capitulations, which included commitments of pro-bono legal work for causes favored by Trump, acts of “capitalistic cowardice”.
The four companies that defied Trump – Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Susman Godfrey and Jenner & Block – learned on Monday that the justice department was dropping its appeal against trial court rulings that blocked implementation of the president’s executive orders imposing sanctions.
The development was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
In a statement on its website welcoming the move, Susman Godfrey said it was Trump who ultimately ended up caving in.
“The government has capitulated, which is a fitting end to its plainly unconstitutional attack on Susman Godfrey and the rule of law,” the statement said.
“We defended ourselves when the president sought to punish and intimidate us because of the clients we represent and the values we hold. We fought for ourselves, but we fought for bigger things, too: for a Constitution that protects our freedoms; for a legal profession that depends on equal justice under the law; and for the people across this country who refuse to back down in the face of an administration that seeks to silence and intimidate them.”
Nine firms ended up making settlements with the Trump administration, the Journal reported. The president had targeted them for perceived “hostility” to his priorities, such as representing his political rivals, or defending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that he sought to eliminate.
One firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, agreed to commit $100m in pro-bono work to causes that both it and Trump championed, the president said in April 2025, as well as an agreement to not engage in race-based hiring.
The company employed Doug Emhoff, husband of Kamala Harris, the former vice-president and Democratic candidate who lost to Trump in the 2024 presidential race. Emhoff told the firm it should not settle, according to the New York Times.
It also helped represent two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who successfully sued Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani for more than $148m in a defamation case related to his lie that the 2020 presidential election – which Trump lost as the incumbent to Joe Biden – was fraudulent.
More than 140 former employees of another firm that struck a deal with Trump, Paul Weiss, wrote to its chair at the time, Brad Karp, accusing him of being complicit in “what is perhaps the gravest threat to the independence of the legal profession since at least the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy”, who led efforts to persecute supposed communist subversives during the cold war era.
One of the firms that refused to settle, Jenner & Block, previously employed Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s connections to Russia.
In a statement, Jenner & Block welcomed the justice department’s decision to drop its defense of Trump’s “unconstitutional” executive orders.
“This chapter has once again confirmed what has been true of Jenner for more than a century – we will always zealously advocate for our clients and put them first, without compromise,” it said.
“Our partnership is proud to have stood firm on behalf of its clients, and we look forward to continuing to serve them – guided by these bedrock values – for many decades to come.”
