Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—WilmerHale asks court to intervene after government counsel refuses to send out final judgment notice, (Jun 10, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

The firm asked the court that struck down Executive Order 14250 to amend its order so that the relief it directed applies to all agencies and officials subject to the EO, and specifically the agencies and officials that received it.

At the end of last week, the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP filed a motion to amend the judgment issued by the D.C. federal district court, which on May 27, 2025, struck down Executive Order 14250, “Addressing Risks from WilmerHale,” that had targeted the law firm. The court found that the EO violates the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments and the separation of powers.

In that decision, the court declared the EO unconstitutional and “null and void” in all respects, “binding the United States—and therefore all of its agencies and officials—to that holding,” WilmerHale contends. The court also permanently enjoined the “agency defendants,” i.e., “all defendants other than defendant United States,” “from implementing or giving effect to” the order. It also directed agency defendants to “immediately take any and all steps necessary to nullify and reverse any implementation or enforcement of Executive Order 14250 that has occurred or is occurring.” Finally, the court mandated that “the agency defendants … immediately issue guidance to their officers, staff, employees, and contractors, instructing them to disregard Executive Order 14250.”

Refusal to distribute more widely. Here, however, the firm filed its motion based on the federal government’s refusal to distribute the court’s order “beyond the agency defendants” and its statement that it “would object to distribution of the order” to other covered agencies, purportedly because “such an effort would be futile without their being a named party.” The problem identified by WilmerHale in its motion is that while “on its face” the “entire United States government is bound by the Court’s declaratory judgment, only the 51 agencies and officers named in the complaint are subject to the injunctive provisions of the Order” and none of the other officers and agencies subject to EO 14250 fall within the injunctive scope of the order.

Therefore, the firm contends, it is “at risk” that an EO struck down by the court “in its entirety as unconstitutional,” will nonetheless be enforced against the firm “by agencies and officers who may not be aware (or could potentially claim unawareness) of either this Court’s declaratory judgment or their obligation to comply with that declaration.” Indeed, the firm noted that, even though 10 days have passed since the court issued its order, the named defendant agencies “have not fully complied.”

Proposed order and judgment. In the order proposed by the law firm, it has provided an Appendix listing all of the entities and responsible officials and successors, as well as “any other departments, agencies, and entities” that received the order or guidance related to it and other identified individuals, with the proposed order that they be permanently enjoined from implementing or giving effect to the order. It also seeks to have the court order them to “take any and all steps necessary to nullify and reverse any implementation or enforcement of Executive Order 14250 that has occurred or is occurring.” It lists several other proposed actions to effectuate the court’s decision.

The case is No. 1:25-cv-917.

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