Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Court grants TRO to Susman Godfrey in its action against Trump administration, (Apr 16, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

The Trump administration has been ordered to file a status report by 5:00 pm today “describing the steps taken to ensure compliance with this order and certifying compliance with its requirements[.]”

Less than a week after the law firm filed suit against the Executive Office of the President and several agencies and individuals in response to an executive order issued by President Trump, a federal district court has issued a temporary restraining order against the defendants, enjoining them from giving effect to three sections of the order—Sections 1, 3, and 5—and ordering certain agency officials, including U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, to issue guidance and take other actions suspending and rescinding implementation or enforcement of those sections. The defendants have been ordered to file a status report by 5:00 p.m. today “describing the steps taken to ensure compliance with this order and certifying compliance with its requirements[.]”

Sections 1, 3, and 5. In Section 1 of the order, issued on April 9, 2025, and published in the Federal Register yesterday, Trump contends that Susman “itself engages in unlawful discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of race” and also states that he has “determined that action is necessary to address the significant risks, egregious conduct, and conflicts of interest associated with” the firm. He also contends that the law firm “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.”

Section 3 “require[s] Government contractors to disclose any business they do with Susman and whether that business is related to the subject of the Government contract” and requires agency heads to “review all contracts with Susman or with entities that disclose doing business with Susman” and take steps to terminate any contract “for which Susman has been hired to perform any service.” It also requires the agencies to submit to OMB an “assessment of contracts with Susman or with entities that do business with Susman effective as of the date of this order and any actions taken with respect to those contracts in accordance with this order.”

Section 5 states that agencies should “refrain from hiring employees of Susman” and that they should limit official access of Susman employees from federal government buildings and provide guidance to their employees limiting them from “engaging with Susman employees” when in their official capacity.

Claims made by firm. In its lawsuit, Susman Godfrey set forth multiple claims under the First and Fifth Amendments, as well as claims of ultra vires Presidential action. It exhorts the judiciary to step in to “repudiate this blatantly unconstitutional Executive Order and the others like it,” warning that if it does not, “a dangerous and perhaps irreversible precedent will be set.” They warn that “someday a different president with an entirely different set of policy priorities and personal grievances will sit behind the Resolute Desk” and that if the order is “allowed to stand, future presidents will face no constraint when they seek to retaliate against a different set of perceived foes. What for two centuries has been beyond the pale will become the new normal.”

“Put simply,” the complaint adds, “this could be any of us.”

The case is No. 25-1107(LLA).

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