The U.S. legal system has faced significant impacts due to President Donald Trump’s executive orders, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law faculty said on a virtual webinar Wednesday.
The panel, titled “Rule of Law and Separation of Powers, Part II: Executive Authority and The Administrative State,” is part of the Big Ten law school series, a set of weekly discussions from March 26 to May 28 hosted by schools in the Big Ten Conference that aims to examine the legal system in 2025 post-Trump’s executive orders.
“These federal actions that we’re going to be talking about today have had a direct effect, not only on many different areas of the law, but also had a direct effect on universities, on law schools and on the legal profession,” said Pritzker Dean Hari Osofsky, who moderated the panel.
The panel also featured Pritzker Profs. Monica Haymond, John O. McGinnis, Daniel B. Rodriguez and James B. Speta. After each individual discussed their thoughts, the panelists answered questions from the Zoom chat.
Speta said the Trump Administration’s actions are “inconsistent” with the rule of law and that the executive branch does not have the authority to reinterpret the 14th Amendment or the First Amendment with education and law firm orders.
Haymond said the Trump administration is “taking aim” at large law firms as they make more efforts to “interfere” with how individuals and organizations are gaining legal representation.
“We’ve seen the Trump administration make pretty bold, assertive, substantive assertions about the reach of executive power in immigration, national security cases, areas where the courts have traditionally been more skeptical of interfering,” Haymond said. “But they’ve yet to go so far as outright defy the courts when there’s been an order.”
Trump signed an executive order that canceled security clearances, preventing attorneys from the firm WilmerHale from having access to federal buildings on March 27. Trump’s executive orders have also targeted Jenner & Block. Both firms have since sued the administration.
Haymond said she has started to see reports that law firms are dropping pro bono cases — cases that are taken for free or of low payment — because they are fearful of being targeted.
“If it turns out that this was an effective way for the Trump administration to prevent large law firms from taking on clients who want to challenge what the administration is doing, that’s going to shrink the pool of available lawyers and put a heavier burden on those who are still willing to take those cases,” Haymond said.
Haymond also said that even though plaintiffs who sue courts have been provided grant relief, it raises the question of whether the current administration can find a loophole in preventing plaintiffs from ordering court orders.
McGinnis said he thinks the most important aspect of Trump’s executive orders is his efforts at systematic deregulation. He said he thinks Trump is making these efforts in response to the United States’ “fiscal crisis” and to ensure higher economic growth in the U.S.
McGinnis added that artificial intelligence allows for an increase in economic growth and that “regulatory bottlenecks” that could prevent this is an essential objective of Trump’s systematic deregulation.
Rodriguez said there have also been legal challenges raised in connection with the Department of Government Efficiency, an organization that Trump and X owner Elon Musk established. Rodriguez also said there have been “a number of legal challenges” in district courts and courts of appeals regarding transparency and privacy issues.
“We’re 100 days in,” Rodriguez said. “A lot of lawsuits, a lot of temporary injunctions have been issued, but no last words and no clear legal determinations that will finally clarify the scope and reach of this DOGE initiative.”
Email: ridhimakodali2027@u.northwestern.edu
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