The American Bar Association’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over its treatment of major law firms has drawn a new round of subpoenas and a dispute over whether one of the ABA’s outside counsel should be disqualified.

The case stems from settlements reached by leaders of nine prominent Big Law firms with President Donald Trump’s administration. According to the source article, those firms collectively paid nearly $1 billion and made concessions in an attempt to secure peace with the administration.

In June 2025, the American Bar Association sued the Trump administration, alleging that it had targeted those nine firms and five others. The ABA claims Trump sought to intimidate attorneys from representing clients and causes he opposed. The dispute sits at the intersection of presidential power, legal ethics, and the ability of lawyers and law firms to represent unpopular clients without government retaliation.

After a federal judge denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the ABA’s complaint in April, the ABA subpoenaed files belonging to Trump adviser Boris Ephsteyn. Ephsteyn was described as a key liaison in negotiating settlements between the nine firms and the White House. The Department of Justice moved to quash the subpoena, arguing that the confidentiality of presidential communications is a constitutional safeguard.

The government’s position faces several issues identified in the source article: Ephsteyn is personal senior counsel to Trump; he does not hold an official position in the White House or the administration; and Trump has not asserted executive privilege. The dispute could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

On July 2, the DOJ served subpoenas on the nine firms that reached settlements, four firms that challenged Trump’s executive order and prevailed, and one firm that took no public action. The subpoenas sought some of the same information the ABA requested from Ephsteyn, including:

“All communications on or after January 20, 2025 that [each firm] sent to Boris Epshteyn, received from Boris Epshteyn, or participated in with Boris Epshteyn.”

The subpoenas also requested all communications related to the negotiation, implementation, enforcement, and monitoring of the agreements.

The Justice Department would presumably already have access to law firm communications with Ephsteyn. That raises the question of why it subpoenaed the firms for some of the same material, including documents it did not want the White House to provide in response to the ABA’s subpoena.

One possible explanation is that the DOJ wanted the 14 subpoenaed firms to pressure the ABA to withdraw its subpoena for Ephsteyn’s files. The source article argues that such a strategy is unlikely to succeed. In April, the ABA filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of its 400,000 members, supporting the four law firms that successfully challenged the constitutionality of Trump’s executive orders.

Another possibility is that the department does not trust Ephsteyn or the White House to provide all relevant materials in Ephsteyn’s possession.

A third possibility is that the subpoenas laid the groundwork for the DOJ’s next move: seeking to disqualify Susman Godfrey, one of the four large firms that won court challenges to Trump’s executive orders, from representing the ABA.

On July 17, the DOJ moved to disqualify Susman Godfrey as the ABA’s outside counsel. The department cited the District of Columbia Rules of Professional Conduct, specifically Rule 3.7, which states: “A lawyer shall not act as advocate at a trial in which the lawyer is likely to be a necessary witness….”

The Justice Department argued that the rule “contains a bright line rule prohibiting a lawyer from serving as both advocate and fact witness in the same matter….” Disqualification motions can matter because they affect a party’s choice of counsel and can reshape litigation strategy, particularly when the challenged lawyers have already developed familiarity with the case.

The source article challenges that interpretation on several grounds. First, Rule 3.7 does not apply to every “fact witness”; it applies only to necessary witnesses. Susman Godfrey lawyers became potential witnesses only because the DOJ subpoenaed documents from the firm as a whole.

Second, the rule applies to individual lawyers within a law firm and, except under special circumstances described as inapplicable to the ABA case, not to every lawyer in an entire firm. The DOJ has sought to depose as potential witnesses only the chairpersons of the 14 firms.

Third, Rule 3.7 focuses on the interests of the client, in this case the ABA, rather than the opposing party, the White House. The official commentary to the rule states: “If the only reason for not permitting a lawyer to combine the roles of advocate and witness is possible prejudice to the opposing party [the White House], there is no reason to disqualify other lawyers in the testifying lawyer’s firm from acting as advocates in that trial.”

Finally, the rule bars only an advocate who is likely to be a necessary witness at trial. The case may never reach trial, and Susman Godfrey could represent the ABA unless and until that stage is reached. The source article notes that DC Bar Ethics Opinion 228 has made that point clear since 1992.

The nine firms that reached settlements now face a dilemma. If they comply with the DOJ’s subpoenas, they may disclose some of the same information the Justice Department is trying to block by objecting to the ABA’s subpoena. How the court handles the overlapping subpoenas and privilege-related objections will help determine how much of the settlement record becomes available in discovery.

The source article also argues that federal judges generally do not view favorably an advocate’s misreading of controlling law or disregard of precedent that undermines its position.

The subpoenas to Susman Godfrey and the other firms that resisted Trump’s executive orders may also strengthen the ABA’s claims of presidential intimidation and harassment. For the nine firms that settled, and for other institutions that have capitulated to Trump, the episode is presented as evidence that appeasement does not produce finality.