President Donald Trump is targeting several white-shoe law firms with histories of fighting immigration enforcement, among other liberal legal causes.
The prominent Democrat-aligned law firms that Trump has hit with executive orders are part of a well-funded nationwide apparatus working pro bono on behalf of left-wing activist groups to keep illegal immigrants in the country.
A handful of Trump’s targets have already acquiesced to the president’s demands to end diversity programs and accept conservative clients, reaching settlements in recent weeks agreeing to “support the Administration’s initiatives” instead. Others, such as legal powerhouse Perkins Coie, are refusing to bend the knee and battling Trump’s executive orders head-on in civil court proceedings.
As the litigation plays out, proponents of Trump’s pressure campaign against Big Law say this shakedown of an industry that’s become overwhelmingly liberal is long overdue. Some in the legal community see it as a course correction following years of one-sided lawfare waged in furtherance of leftist causes.
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Immigration court has been one such battleground. The BigLaw firms have fought both for individual illegal immigrants and against executive actions that have sought to curb illegal border crossings.
Perkins Coie
Of the four holdouts taking Trump on in federal court, Seattle-based Perkins Coie is a progressive heavyweight fighting against the deportation of illegal immigrants for a consortium of activist partners.
Perkins Coie deploys squadrons of pro bono lawyers to serve as foot soldiers in this fight.
For example, during Trump’s first term, Perkins Coie “dispatched” a unit of lawyers and paralegals to the Karnes County Detention Facility, an immigration processing center southeast of San Antonio, Texas, according to a yearly pro bono report.
There, the team of Perkins Coie attorneys prepared “as many [of the 400-plus detainees] as possible” for credit fear interviews, a crucial part of the asylum-claiming process, in partnership with the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, a Texas nonprofit group providing free legal representation to asylum-seekers who have unlawfully entered the United States.
According to InfluenceWatch, RAICES is the successor to the Refugee Aid Project, which was born out of the Sanctuary Movement, a network that helped foreign nationals from Central America enter the United States without authorization in the 1980s. Right before the Refugee Aid Project’s founding, two Sanctuary Movement members were convicted in federal court of conspiracy for transporting Salvadorans who were living in the U.S. illegally.
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Perkins Coie is also a longtime pro bono partner of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, a legal services provider operating along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and an abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement advocate.
The Florence Project, which widely distributes guides on claiming strategic defenses against deportation, arranges for a team of attorneys at Perkins Coie to represent migrants free of charge.
In 2020, the 501(c)(3) organization presented Perkins Coie with its Special Partnership Award for devoting nearly 1,440 hours to training staff and litigating immigration-related cases in the Arizona courts. That year, nine Perkins Coie attorneys served as co-counsel with the Florence Project in habeas petitions challenging the detention of 23 migrants.
“I’m never more motivated to come to work than when I’m working on a project with the Florence Project,” a member of the Perkins Coie team said, according to a press release announcing the award.
“They taught and mentored us, strategized, hoped, and grieved with us,” the Florence Project said of Perkins Coie. “Partnering with this team gave us the strength, the confidence, the experience, and the inspiration to advocate for our clients in entirely new ways, in a forum new and unfamiliar.”
As of 2023, the Florence Project retained eight pro bono Perkins Coie attorneys, according to an annual report.
Using fees awarded from an Arizona prison reform class action lawsuit, Perkins Coie previously funded a legal director post at the Florence Project to take “the most challenging legal cases” on appeal. “With the Legal Director position, we plan to bring appeals to the 9th Circuit, something we are not able to do without the support of Perkins Coie,” the Florence Project’s executive director, Lauren Dasse, said at the time.
Aside from individual case consultation, Perkins Coie also challenges U.S. immigration policy through the legal system. In one particular pro bono effort, Perkins Coie won a case challenging the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program, which delayed and denied applications for citizenship or lawful residency over national security concerns.
Over the past 35 years, Perkins Coie has provided approximately 1.45 million hours of pro bono services, the law firm reported in court filings. In 2024 alone, Perkins Coie lawyers worked more than 89,000 hours on pro bono matters valued at nearly $70 million.
Jenner & Block
Jenner & Block, another high-profile law firm fending off Trump’s threats, is deeply entrenched in the immigration advocacy sector.
Headquartered in Chicago, the firm often takes on deportation defense cases referred by the National Immigrant Justice Center, or NIJC, a Soros-funded legal assistance recruitment hub touting a network of over 2,000 pro bono attorneys.
Every month, the NIJC lists asylum-seekers in need of pro bono representation for referral. After accepting these recommendations, Jenner & Block frequently collaborates with corporate legal aid agencies, such as McDonald’s pro bono program, at each stage of the asylum process, working together as “teammates” on drafting affidavits, interviewing witnesses, and other divided duties.
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An open borders advocate, the NIJC calls for the defunding of all federal immigration enforcement agencies and the decriminalization of illegal immigration. The city of Chicago’s Legal Protection Fund, a citywide initiative established in response to the 2016 election of Trump, proudly partners with the NIJC and advertises its services to migrants living within the city’s limits. Through its parent organization, Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Rights, the NIJC has received $400,000 from the Foundation to Promote Open Society, a major grantmaking foundation funded by liberal financier George Soros, for defending migrants from deportation “regardless of background.”
Jenner & Block associates hold prominent positions at the NIJC, including on the board of directors and leadership councils. Wade Thomson, co-chair of Jenner & Block’s business litigation practice and member of the firm’s policy committee, is an NIJC board member.
Jenner & Block is now muting testimonials to its pro bono work on the firm’s website and made its annual pro bono report publicly inaccessible without a password, Chicago Business reported.
On the U.S. policy front, Jenner & Block is representing three immigration advocacy organizations, including RAICES and the Florence Project, in a challenge to Trump’s presidential proclamation on securing the nation’s border, which barred migrants from remaining in the U.S. while seeking asylum. The complaint claims that Trump’s executive order violated several statutory provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act pertaining to asylum and withholding of removal protections.
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On behalf of some of the same clients, Jenner & Block had also sued the Biden administration over a rule limiting asylum access. In response, the Biden administration argued that asylum-seekers could use the CBP One app as a way of scheduling asylum appointments.
Trump, upon entering office, then directed DHS to discontinue CBP One, and Jenner & Block jointly filed a motion to temporarily block the app’s shutdown. In February, a judge ruled that the court lacked authority to order the parole of non-citizens into the United States, determining that this power is at the “exclusive discretion” of the Homeland Security secretary.
Jenner & Block is the leading law firm nationally for pro bono services, ranked No. 1 on The American Lawyer‘s Pro Bono Scorecard at least 12 times.
In 2021, Jenner & Block made a five-year commitment to provide $250 million in free legal assistance reportedly in response to the George Floyd riots. Last summer, the firm surpassed its pledge’s milestone 18 months ahead of schedule.
Jenner & Block’s pro bono numbers continue to climb. Last year, 97% of Jenner & Block attorneys contributed over 50 pro bono hours, amounting to almost 91,000 hours of pro bono work, according to the firm’s website. To date, Jenner & Block manages more than 20 pro bono client partnership projects.
WilmerHale
The Trump White House has accused Washington, D.C., law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr (WilmerHale) of “back[ing] the obstruction” of federal immigration enforcement efforts.
WilmerHale was previously recognized by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, a radical Antifa-affiliated association of far-left attorneys, for “protecting and expanding immigration rights in the U.S.”
The National Immigration Project is a membership organization “cultivating a cohort of community defenders” and training lawyers “to navigate the complexities of immigration law.” Marketed as “Resourcing the Movement,” the National Immigration Project’s programming includes monthly removal defense webinars on “Overcoming Bars to Relief,” legal explainers pontificating about “the harmful and racist impact” of preventing migrants with criminal records from becoming citizens, and practice advisories for attorneys to follow detailing, for example, how to defend criminal aliens against the Laken Riley Act‘s mandatory detention provisions.
WilmerHale is also pro bono partners with Ayuda, a DMV-area advocacy organization and legal services provider. Ayuda’s “pro bono pipeline” connects clients to legal counsel through free consultation clinics and oversees long-term representation in immigration matters, including obtaining visas and claiming asylum. Pro bono attorneys benefit from Ayuda’s “expert immigration mentorship and easy-to-use intake materials,” as no prior immigration law experience is required.
WilmerHale’s New York office has hosted several pro se asylum clinics in the city overrun by mass migration.
In December, the firm led a self-help workshop, organized by the New York Legal Assistance Group as part of its Pro Se Plus Project, teaching newly arrived migrants how to prepare their asylum applications for submission. At an August asylum clinic held in partnership with the left-of-center Sanctuary for Families, seven teams of WilmerHale attorneys and interpreters helped SFF clients apply for asylum.
WilmerHale, as well as Jenner & Block, partnered with New York Mayor Eric Adams in 2023 to assist with asylum claims at the city’s Asylum Application Help Center. Asylum-seekers were scheduled for one-on-one appointments at the help center, where over 600 trained application assistants and immigration lawyers provided individualized pro bono support to the applicants. After receiving help filling out their asylum forms, the migrants mailed more than 1,300 asylum applications in a matter of weeks.
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In 2018, WilmerHale successfully sued the Trump administration in a yearslong class action lawsuit opposing the separation of spouses, when one was at risk of deportation, while they pursued a pathway to lawful immigration based on marriage.
151 WilmerHale attorneys were named to the District of Columbia Courts’ 2024 Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll. Of the WilmerHale honorees, over half earned an additional accolade: a place on the High Honor Roll, which recognizes members of the D.C. Bar who performed more than 100 hours of pro bono work that calendar year.
In 2024, the Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services of the Judicial Conference of the District of Columbia Circuit honored WilmerHale at an event celebrating law firms at which at least 40% of lawyers provided at least 50 hours of pro bono legal aid to low-income individuals or charitable organizations. Judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit were in attendance.
Susman Godfrey
Trump also took aim at eminent Texas litigator Susman Godfrey.
“Susman Godfrey has at times taken on unpopular clients and controversial causes in pro bono representations,” the law firm acknowledged in its complaint filed against the Trump administration.
Lawyers at Susman Godfrey are often tapped by trial and appellate courts across the country to assist with precedent-setting pro bono matters, the law firm’s website says. Susman Godfrey also regularly partners with various organizations on significant pro bono litigation, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Civil Rights Corps, the Texas Fair Defense Project, and the Next Generation Action Network Legal Advocacy, among many others.
Susman Godfrey represented the International Rescue Committee pro bono when the state of Texas sued to block the IRC from resettling any Syrian refugees in Texas. Working with the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center, a team of Susman Godfrey attorneys defeated the state’s multiple requests for injunctive relief, and a federal court later dismissed all of the state’s claims in the Syrian resettlement case.
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Susman Godfrey has been featured before on National Law Journal‘s Pro Bono Hot List for going “all in on bail reform.” The law firm was recognized for its pro bono work on a landmark case that successfully challenged the constitutionality of the cash bail system used in Harris County, Texas.
For decades, the Harris County Jail detained tens of thousands of defendants who were arrested for misdemeanors but financially unable to post bail. In an effort to dismantle the county’s bail practices, Susman Godfrey represented a class of indigent arrestees on a pro bono basis.
Susman Godfrey’s managing partner Neal Manne described the litigation as “all-out war.” Attorneys on the case poured in 1,000 hours of pro bono labor over two years and slaved away at an eight-day evidentiary hearing, which featured 300 written exhibits, 2,300 video recordings of bail hearings, and 13 witnesses. Susman is “pretty selective” about pro bono work, Manne said. “When we do take something on, we’re all in,” he said.
In the first year following Susman Godfrey’s legal victory, more than 12,000 pre-trial defendants were released from the county jail.
