Nine of America’s largest and most powerful law firms have surrendered to President Donald Trump’s illegal threats. They demeaned themselves by agreeing to provide an astonishing $940 million in free legal services to causes chosen by Trump and the firms, while also agreeing to discontinue their DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies. Fortunately, other firms refused and are fighting back.

Trump’s bullying comes straight out of the Dictator’s Playbook. The most ominous parallel is to Nazi Germany, where Adolph Hitler successfully bent the German legal system to his will, with the complicity of German lawyers and judges. 

To explore the chilling similarities between the efforts of Trump and those of Hitler to eviscerate the independence of lawyers and the legal system itself, I am indebted to the prodigious research and incisive analysis of Cynthia L. Fountaine, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at UNT Dallas College of Law, author of Complicity in the Perversion of Justice: The Role of Lawyers in Eroding the Rule of Law in the Third Reich (2020). The historical details discussed in this article that reveal how Hitler commandeered the long-established German legal system to facilitate the murderous Nazi agenda are based on Dean Fountaine’s brilliant article.

The Rule of Law, as Fountaine explains it, means that all persons, institutions, and entities are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, independently adjudicated, and consistent with international human rights principles, and requires “measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of the law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, separation of powers, participation in decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance of arbitrariness, and...legal transparency.” 

Hitler never believed in the Rule of Law and neither does Trump. After all, Hitler was convicted of an attempted coup—the infamous Munich Beer Hall Putsch—and Trump was convicted of 34 felonies for his part in a criminal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential election. Both saw the law as something to evade or break until, having seized power, they could contort it into a weapon to expand their power, silence their opposition, and reward their allies.

To achieve Lebensraum (expansionism) and Volkisch (nationalism), Hitler forced lawyers to succumb to his will so that he could transform the legal system into a loyal and compliant arm of the state. Now Trump is attempting to do the same thing. To “Make America Great Again” he must remove the legal obstacles preventing him from achieving his goal of dominating the government and controlling the American people. But brave and dedicated lawyers—those whose education, training, and ethics make them uniquely positioned to protect the Rule of Law – have been among the first responders, invoking laws and the Constitution to block much of what Trump is doing. As a result, he is now facing over 200 lawsuits, resulting thus far in over 90 injunctions restraining his egregious lawless conduct. 

Trump has yet to dismantle the American legal system the way Hitler destroyed the German legal system, but he sure is trying. To prevent him from succeeding we must remember how Hitler destroyed the Rule of Law in Germany.

How Hitler Dismantled the Rule of Law 

Fountaine describes the incremental steps the Nazis used to gain control of the German legal system and abrogate the Rule of Law, and how the legal and ethical failings of German lawyers ultimately turned the legal system on its head. “By failing to uphold the integrity and independence of the profession, lawyers and judges permitted and ultimately collaborated in the subversion of the basic lawyer–client relationship, the abrogation of the lawyer’s role as an advocate, and the elimination of judicial independence.” German lawyers and judges were guilty of “tolerating, facilitating, encouraging, and legitimizing the Nazi agenda,” according to Fontaine. 

And these lawyers and judges were not all card-carrying Nazis. Fountaine’s research disclosed that “the vast majority of lawyers and judges were not Nazis, but were ordinary lawyers and judges, part of the educated cultural elite of Germany.” They had personal and professional motivations for what they did and did not do, and those motivations may not have had anything to do with loyalty to Hitler and the Nazis. “Nevertheless, these lawyers and judges also failed Germany entirely; they fueled Hitler’s agenda of genocide and hatred by giving it legitimacy and authority.” 

As early as 1920 the Nazi Party adopted a political platform that included a plan for a new legal system based on race “as a new guiding principle of social life.” The law was to be “applied in a despotic and chaotic way,” Fountaine explains, “leaving people without any protection from a violent, totalitarian government.” 

In 1928, pursuant to specific instructions from Hitler, Hans Frank – a German lawyer who would go on to be the chief architect of the new Nazi legal system – started the Association for National Socialist German Jurists (the “BNSJD”). By 1933, the BNSJD had grown to 1,600 members and would soon effectively take over the German Bar with little or no resistance from its existing membership. 

On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed German Chancellor byPresident Paul von Hindenburg. Within a month, the Reichstag Fire occurred. Hitler used that event to stoke a panic among Germans, claiming that the Communists were attacking them, that Communist dissidents burned the Reichstag, and that no one was safe until society was rid of them all. On the day after the fire, at Hitler’s urging, Hindenburg issued the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State (commonly known as the “Reichstag Fire Decree”), declaring a state of emergency and giving the government the power to enact laws by decree, without parliamentary review and approval. 

Shortly thereafter, laws designed to “purge” the legal profession were declared. On April 7, 1933, the Law on the Admission to the Legal Profession prohibited the admission of Jews and certain others to the Bar and disbarred most Jewish, Social Democrat, and Communist lawyers. On the same day, the Law for Restoration of the Professional Civil Service removed all Jewish, Social Democrat, and other “politically unreliable” judges, public prosecutors, and district attorneys. Jewish and politically progressive members of law faculties were dismissed and replaced with faculty members sympathetic to the Nazis. Additionally, women lawyers—whose numbers had grown in the years before 1933 due to expanded educational opportunities for women in the Weimar Republic—were fired from government jobs. Thereafter, a woman’s entry into the profession was strictly limited through a rigid quota system. 

The new rules of professional ethics established by the BNSJD imposed anethical duty on all lawyers to show unwavering support for Hitler and hispolicies in both professional and personal contexts. Fountaine describes how one lawyer was disciplined for refusing to return the Nazi salute in court. Attorneys were disbarred for accepting treatment from a Jewish physician; for refusing to vote in the 1936 Reichstag election as a protest against Gestapo practices; for voting “no” in the referendum regarding the annexation of Austria; and, for one lawyer, because “she was seen playing chess and drinking coffee with a fellow tenant who was known to be Jewish.” 

The 1933 Law on Requirements for Continued Admission to the Bar required an attorney to be disbarred if they “had been active in a Communist sense.” While it was unclear what that meant, it was clear that an attorney who even attempted to represent a client with any ties to Communism might be reprimanded for doing so or even disbarred. Some attorneys who had represented Communists or Social Democrats were disciplined or disbarred. 

The Nazification of the German legal system also included coordinating the training of law students. After the 1933 purge of academics, new faculty members sympathetic to the Nazi ideology were appointed by the Nazi leadership. Professors who taught law were told “to extol the Führer as a figure of light and a hero who is leading the German soul out of the depths into the light, showing it the safe path to Valhalla.” 

Indeed, the entire body of German jurisprudence was upended. Hans Frank told a conference of German judges: “Formerly we were in the habit of saying: ‘This is right or wrong.’ Today we must ask the question: ‘What would the Führer say?’ We are under the great obligation of recognizing as a holy work of our Folk Spirit the laws signed by Adolf Hitler. Hitler has received his authority from God.” In 1936, Frank instructed judges that the bedrock principle of Nazi jurisprudence was as follows: “Say to yourselves at every decision which you make: ‘How would the Führer decide in my place?’” 

Likewise, Roland Freisler, President of the Nazi People’s Court, said: “Whether the judgment is sound must be tested against the standards and guidelines that the Führer himself has repeatedly given to the people . . . in important questions affecting the life of the people.” Judge and State Secretary Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart explained, “[t]hose actions of judges that seek to limit the political decisions of the Führer and ultimately obstruct them are in direct opposition to the central legal conception of the National Socialist state, namely the Führer Principle.” 

Beginning in 1944, the right to counsel, even in death penalty cases, wasleft to the discretion of the judge hearing the case. And even if counsel was permitted or appointed, the defense lawyer’s ability to represent the client was very limited. To undertake a representation, the lawyer had to get the permission of the Ministry of Justice, the BNSJD, and the court’s president. The prosecutor controlled whether and when the defense lawyer could speak to the client and to witnesses as well as what evidence could be presented by the defense. In addition, according to Fountaine “perhaps most fatal to any pretense of representation of the accused, the defense lawyer could not make any arguments that might be interpreted as being critical of the state; to do so would mean removal from the proceedings, likely disbarment, and possible criminal charges against the lawyer.” 

Hitler despised lawyers. He promised “[t]o make every German realize that it is a disgrace to be a lawyer.” He even once said, “[e]very lawyer must be regarded as a man deficient by nature or else deformed by usage.” Fountaine explains that “Hitler’s goal was not only to purge the legal profession of those he thought undesirable and coordinate the legal system to promote his agenda, but to control the legal system to a complete degree so that there was no real distinction between himself and the law.” 

In the end Hitler succeeded in neutralizing the entire legal profession and eliminated anything resembling the Rule of Law, and he did so with the complicity of the lawyers themselves. “The failing of the legal profession began with a willing ignorance on the part of the legal profession of the evil being promulgated by the Nazi Party, or worse, with a knowing tolerance or even embrace of its racist vision,” Fountaine observes. “Once the legal system had been subverted—forced into line through purging and coordination—it was too late for the legal profession to fulfill its responsibility to promote the just administration of law and resist the atrocities that resulted from the implementation of that racist vision. By that point, the profession had become complicit in destroying the Rule of Law in the Third Reich.”

Trump Threatens Major Law Firms; a Few Fight Back, But Many More Shamefully Capitulate 

Just as not all the German lawyers who capitulated to Hitler’s new rules were Nazis, today not all the American lawyers who are complying with Trump’s demands are MAGA lawyers. Some are, but others are part of the educated elite of the United States who, for what they see as personal and professional motivations, are fueling Trump’s agenda by giving it legitimacy and authority. 

And just as the Nazification of the legal system made race “a new guiding principle of social life,” Trump’s racist attitudes toward immigrants from Central and South America, and Muslims from South Asia and the Middle East – these days, particularly Palestinians – are likewise guiding principles of his domestic and foreign policies. And just as Hitler stoked a panic among Germans within a month of the Reichstag Fire, today Trump is stoking a panic that violent gangs, illegal aliens, and Palestinian terrorists on our college campuses are attacking America, and no one will be safe until America is rid of them all. 

True to his inherent Hitlerian instincts, Trump has declared, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” This ominous command has actually been attributed to another dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte. But by adopting it, Trump is echoing what the Nazi sycophants said: Since he is saving the country, nothing he does violates the law.

And so Trump, using Project 2025 as his guide, got busy. To date, he has issued over 130 executive orders, none of which, by definition, were debated and approved by Congress. On his first day in office, he signed 26 executive orders, more than any other president, and in his first 65 days, he signed 104 executive orders, more than any other president had ever signed in their first 100 days. If the US Constitution and the lawyers defending it impede Trump’s authoritarian and racist agenda, he must circumvent and eliminate them. And so the attacks on lawyers and law firms began. 

At first, law firms stood tall. On February 25, 2025, Trump signed a memorandum ordering an evaluation of federal contracts with the prominent DC-based law firm Covington & Burling and suspending the security clearances of several lawyers at the firm—lawyers who advised former Special Counsel Jack Smith. Smith, as Special Counsel, had brought two federal criminal prosecutions against Trump for election interference in the 2020 presidential election and for retaining classified documents. "We recently agreed to represent Jack Smith when it became apparent that he would become a subject of a government investigation," the firm said in a statement following Trump’s attack. "We look forward to defending Mr. Smith's interests and appreciate the trust he has placed in us to do so." Covington & Burling has refused to enter into any agreement with Trump to forestall his directives. 

On March 6, Trump issued an executive order suspending the security clearances of attorneys at the leading law firm of Perkins Coie and criticized its diversity and inclusion policies, accusing the firm of "dishonest and dangerous activity." Trump explicitly cited the firm's representation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her the 2016 presidential race against him. Perkins Coie promptly engaged the prominent Washington DC law firm Williams and Connerly, which immediately filed a lawsuit accusing the administration of violating “core constitutional rights, including the rights to free speech and due process." The lawsuit argues that the executive order is “an unlawful attack on the freedom of all Americans to select counsel of their choice without fear of retribution or punishment from the government." The day after Perkins Coie filed its suit, a federal judge agreed to temporarily block part of Trump’s executive order. 

On March 14, Trump issued an executive order directed at the prominent New York City-based law firm Paul Weiss. In particular, he railed against attorney Mark Pomerantz, who had left Paul Weiss to assist the Manhattan District Attorney's office in its probe of Trump's finances. When Pomerantz resigned as special district attorney in February 2022, he wrote in a departing letter that he believed Trump was "guilty of numerous felony violations." In his order, Trump sought to revoke security clearances for attorneys of the firm and bar their access to government buildings – presumably including federal courthouses, which would literally prevent the lawyers from doing their jobs since they would not be able to appear in their clients’ federal criminal and civil cases pending inside those courthouses. Just days later, in his first victory, Trump rescinded the executive order and announced an agreement under which Paul Weiss would provide $40 million in pro bono work for causes that the administration supports and the firm would end its DEI policies. 

On March 22, Trump named the Elias Law Group in a memo entitled, "Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court." The memo claimed that the firm was "deeply involved in the creation of a false 'dossier' by a foreign national designed to provide a fraudulent basis for Federal law enforcement to investigate a Presidential candidate [Trump] in order to alter the outcome of the Presidential election." The memo asserted that Mark Elias "intentionally sought to conceal the role of his client — failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — in the dossier." Elias, a Democratic election lawyer who founded and chairs the group, said Trump’s actions target "every attorney and law firm who dares to challenge his assault on the rule of law.” Trump's “goal is clear. He wants lawyers and law firms to capitulate and cower until there is no one left to oppose his Administration in court." His firm “will not be deterred from fighting for democracy in court," he said. "There will be no negotiation with this White House about the clients we represent or the lawsuits we bring on their behalf." 

On March 25, Trump signed an executive order revoking security clearances for attorneys at the prominent law firm of Jenner & Block and ordering a review of the firm's contracts with the federal government. Trump's order singled out Andrew Weissmann, a former Jenner attorney whom Trump accused of building his career around "weaponized government and abuse of power." Weissmann had been a lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller's Special Counsel's Office, which investigated Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and its ties to Russia. 

Jenner fought back. It called the order an "unconstitutional executive order that has already been declared unlawful by a federal court." "We remain focused on serving and safeguarding our clients' interests with the dedication, integrity, and expertise that has defined our firm for more than one hundred years and will pursue all appropriate remedies." The firm then filed a lawsuit, and on March 28, Judge John D. Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from taking action against Jenner. Judge Bates said it was "disturbing" that Jenner had been targeted for its representation of transgender people and immigrants. On April 1, Bates extended his order until a final judgment has been entered. Following the ruling, Jenner said Trump’s order holds "no legal weight" and the firm “will continue to do what we have always done, our job as lawyers and fearless advocates for our clients.” 

On March 27, Trump signed an executive order that suspended security clearances for the employees of yet another prominent law firm, WilmerHale, and limited their access to federal buildings. The order revoked WilmerHale's government contracts for engaging in "partisan representations to achieve political ends" and "efforts to discriminate on the basis of race." WilmerHale had employed Mueller and other lawyers who had worked with the Justice Department to investigate ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign. The firm immediately hired Paul Clement, a prominent conservative lawyer and former Solicitor General, who filed a lawsuit to vindicate “the First Amendment, our adversarial system of justice, and the rule of law," he said. 

On March 28, a federal judge temporarily blocked key parts of Trump's order, saying it would have "severe" spillover effects on the justice system. On March 28, despite three injunctions other firms had already obtained, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP made a deal with Trump, even before he targeted the firm, promising to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services to causes selected by Trump and the firm, and promising to refrain from engaging in "illegal DEI discrimination.” 

Between April 1 and 11, seven more law firms – Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP; Milbank; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, LLP; Kirkland & Ellis LLP; Allen Overy Shearman Sterling US LLP; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP; and Latham & Watkins LLP – agreed to provide a collective total of $800 million in pro bono legal services to causes selected by Trump and each firm, with several agreeing that the pro bono activities will “represent the full political spectrum, including Conservative ideals.” They all also agreed not to engage in any illegal DEI discrimination and preferences. On April 9, emboldened by the many law firms that had caved without a fight, Trump issued an executive order claiming the law firm of Susman Godfrey LLP “spearheads efforts to weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections;” “funds groups that engage in dangerous efforts to undermine the effectiveness of the United States military through the injection of political and radical ideology;” and “supports efforts to discriminate on the basis of race.” As proof, Trump accused Susman of offering “financial awards and employment opportunities” only to “students of color,” which Trump characterized as unlawful discrimination perpetrated in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Susman was targeted because it had represented Dominion, the voting machine company that had secured a $787.5 million settlement in a defamation case against Fox News. 

With Susman, Trump upped the ante. He directed the Attorney General and other federal agencies to “immediately take steps consistent with applicable law to suspend any active security clearances held by individuals at Susman” pending a review of whether such clearances are “consistent with the national interest.” He also ordered the Office of Management and Budget to “identify all Government goods, property, material, and services” provided to Susman, and “to the extent permitted by law, expeditiously cease such provision.” And he ordered federal agencies, to the extent permitted by law, to require government contractors to disclose “any business they do with Susman” and “take appropriate steps to terminate any such contract;” to provide guidance both “limiting official access from Federal Government buildings to employees of Susman” and “limiting Government employees acting in their official capacity from engaging with Susman employees;” and to “refrain from hiring employees of Susman,” absent a waiver that “such hire will not threaten the national security of the United States.” 

Once again, a court stepped in to stop Trump. On April 15, 2025, Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia blocked him from enforcing his order, calling the retribution campaign he has waged against the nation’s top firms “a shocking abuse of power” and a “personal vendetta.” She noted that law firms “across the country are entering into agreements with the government out of fear that they will be targeted next and that coercion is plain and simple.” She added, “while I wish other firms were not capitulating as readily, I admire firms like Susman for standing up and challenging it when it does threaten the very existence of their business.” 

Donald Verrilli, a lawyer representing Susman, pointed out that Trump had called lawyers who represented clients at odds with Trump’s agenda “un-American” and a national security risk, and that Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, had encouraged “big law” to “bend the knee.” Judge AliKhan found that the executive order violated the First and Fifth Amendments and had the potential to seriously harm the firm’s business interests and reputation. “The government has sought to use its immense power to dictate the positions that law firms may and may not take,” she said. “The executive order seeks to control who law firms are allowed to represent. This immensely oppressive power threatens the very foundations of legal representation in our country.” 

And now, having intimidated the legal profession, Trump is going directly after the judges. No longer is he simply mocking them and calling for their impeachment. On April 25, FBI agents publicly arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, accusing her of obstructing federal authorities who were seeking to detain an undocumented immigrant in her courtroom who was facing unrelated criminal charges. In lockstep with Trump’s insulting verbal attacks, Attorney General Pam Bondi called the judge “deranged.”

Is It Too Late? 

Trump’s coercive executive orders against law firms in retaliation for the clients they represent are corrosive to the Rule of Law. They are part of his strategy to threaten, coerce, intimidate, and punish judges, universities, museums, non-profit organizations, news organizations, television networks, opposition leaders, protesters, whistleblowers, immigrants, workers, unions, children, and the American people. 

Confronting the disastrous war in Vietnam, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned us that we were facing “the fierce urgency of now.” Today is no different. Dr. King reminded us that “there is such a thing as being too late” because “life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity.” The “tide in the affairs of men” does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. “Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late.”

But it is not too late to save our democracy if we organize, mobilize, and resist. Over 110 law students have signed a pledge to work only for law firms that refuse to capitulate to Trump’s demands, saying “Our democracy is under attack, and it is time for lawyers to choose sides.” They complained that the response “from too many firms has been either silence or collaboration, with some of the most powerful law firms in the world committing to the elimination of diversity programs” and openly agreeing to provide pro bono services “to support Trump's lawless agenda.” 

We must do what German lawyers and judges did not do at the first signs of Nazism: We must condemn those law firms that capitulated and celebrate those that refused to submit. We must condemn Columbia University and celebrate Harvard. We must relentlessly protest in the streets, declaring collectively that we will not be complicit in the perversion of our democracy. 

We must call for General Strikes and boycotts of Tesla, Avelo Airlines, and other companies that are aiding and abetting Trump’s crimes. We must impeach Trump for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and if the Republican-controlled Senate refuses to remove him from office, we must elect Senators in the 2026 midterm election who openly declare “enough is enough” and pledge to vote to convict and remove Trump once and for all. A new President must appoint justices who will rein in unrestrained executive power and will reverse the shameful decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States of America, in which the six arch-conservative justices (three of whom Trump appointed) awarded their liege a vast and complex criminal immunity scheme. Those justices were as weak and submissive as the cowardly lawyers today in the United States and back then in Germany. 

 But not all the justices submitted to Trump’s will. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a blistering 30-page dissent to that decision, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who wrote her own searing and analytical 22-page dissent. “In sum,” Sotomayor wrote, “the majority today endorses an expansive vision of Presidential immunity that was never recognized by the Founders, any sitting President, the Executive Branch, or even President Trump’s lawyers, until now.” In every use of official power, “the President is now a king above the law,” Sotomayor wrote. “The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding.” The immunity the court created now “lies about like a loaded weapon” for any president to use for their own political gain or financial interests, “with the knowledge that they are inoculated from criminal liability.” 

“From this day forward,” Jackson wrote, “Presidents of tomorrow will be free to exercise the Commander-in-Chief powers, the foreign affairs powers, and all the vast law enforcement powers enshrined in Article II however they please — including in ways that Congress has deemed criminal and that have potentially grave consequences for the rights and liberties of Americans.” She concluded that “the seeds of absolute power for Presidents have been planted,” adding that as “we enter this uncharted territory, the People, in their wisdom, will need to remain ever attentive, consistently fulfilling their established role in our constitutional democracy, and thus collectively serving as the ultimate safeguard against any chaos spawned by this Court’s decision.” 

Fountaine added a Post Scriptum to her illuminating article about the Nazi jurisprudence. She explained that her purpose in writing her article “was to highlight what can happen when people— especially lawyers—do not speak up and actively resist injustice in the legal system.” As her article went to print in the early summer of 2020, she underscored the need to speak out against persistent racial injustice in the United States including the then-recent killings of several African Americans, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and the sometimes violent governmental responses to protests sparked by those deaths. 

Fontaine concluded with the words of

Justice Thurgood Marshall, which should

inspire us today: “where you see wrong

or inequality or injustice, speak out,

because this is your country. This is your

democracy—make it—protect it—pass it

on.”