Keker, Van Nest & Peters Managing Partner Laurie Carr Mims and partner Ajay Krishan joined UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky for an event exploring the role that lawyers and law firms play in protecting the rule of law, as reported by The Recorder.
Addressing the law school students in attendance, Dean Chemerinsky first outlined the actions the Trump administration has taken in targeting law firms through executive orders. He decried the administration’s moves to punish law firms for the clients they represent as “extortion” and said the executive actions were unconstitutional and illegal. He also said that if all law firms had banded together in a unified front to challenge the orders, the attacks would have been resolved quickly.
Mims described the Keker partnership’s decision to issue a statement condemning the administration’s attacks on law firms and the legal system. “The partnership was of one mind,” she said. “This is horrible. It’s an affront to the Constitution, separation of powers, our democracy.”
The administration’s actions are having a chilling effect on law firms’ pro bono work, Krishnan said. “We work with a lot of nonprofit organizations who are telling us that they are now having a very hard time finding law firms who are willing to take these types of cases. Law firms are very, very worried about getting on the wrong side of the administration.”
Dean Chemerinsky put the issue of protecting the rule of law back to the law students in the audience: “You, as law students, have a choice to make. … Decide whether you want to go to law firms that fought that or law firms that capitulated.”
Read the article at The Recorder (paywall).