Washington Post via MSN: “Smaller law firms are being pressed to their limits as they try to pick up the legal slack. The largest law firms in the United States have been far less likely to challenge President Donald Trump’s policies than they were during his first term, and smaller firms are carrying much more of the burden of high-stakes legal challenges, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Large firms represented plaintiffs in 15 percent of cases challenging Trump executive orders between the start of his term in January and mid-September, compared with roughly 75 percent of cases during a comparable period in Trump’s first term, The Post found. The analysis examined civil complaints and court records from legal research website CourtListener mentioning Trump and the term “executive order” for each time period The shift by large firms has put a significant extra burden on small- and medium-sized firms. They have taken on more of the workload in the nearly 400 lawsuits filed between January and mid-September, according to The Post’s analysis. Trump signed more than 200 executive orders in that time period, well above the count from the first eight months of his first term. Some of his executive orders this spring targeted major law firms. In some cases, firms whose resources were stretched thin and whose lawyers became worn out have turned down clients facing life-changing issues tied to Trump’s policies. Firms such as the Baltimore outfit Brown, Goldstein & Levy, with about 20 attorneys, aren’t equipped to assist the deluge of people who say they have been harmed by the administration’s directives, said Eve Hill, a partner. “They beg us,” said Hill, who represents people with disabilities suing the government over cuts to the Social Security Administration. “They say, ‘I’m going to lose my job and my home…I’m going to lose my family.’” Not only are fewer cases being brought by large firms, the biggest firms also make up a reduced share of those getting involved in litigation against the government.

Nearly 90 percent of firms suing the government during Trump’s second term through mid-September employ fewer than 500 lawyers, an increase in small- and medium-sized law office involvement from 60 percent during the same stretch of the president’s first term. Some of the firms that have sued the administration employ one attorney, and many team up with nonprofits and other groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward. The number of suits filed against Trump executive orders was more than four times larger through mid-September this year than in the comparable period of 2017, giving firms more opportunities to get involved in legal challenges. Among the nation’s 20 largest law firms as measured by revenue, six have been involved in challenging administration actions this year, several fewer than in 2017…”