WilmerHale handed the Trump administration another defeat last week, with Judge Richard Leon striking down the retaliatory executive order with extreme prejudice, a bevy of exclamation points, and a gumbo recipe:
The Order is akin to a gumbo. Sections 2 through 5 are the meaty ingredients—e.g., the Andouille, the okra, the tomatoes, the crab, the oysters. But it is the roux—here, § 1—which holds everything together. A gumbo is served and eaten with all the ingredients together, and so too must the sections of the Order be addressed together. As explained in this Memorandum Opinion, this gumbo gives the Court heartburn.
And if a culinary beatdown wasn’t enough, WilmerHale now has a protest song to its name.
The Silent Moon Project has a new song called Justice on Trial: The Stand of WilmerHale, giving Biglaw resistance the folk anthem treatment.
They came for the lawyers, cloaked in command
With Executive Orders and a trembling hand
WilmerHale stood though the storm was wild
For justice for rights for every law-abiding child.
While Wilmer’s victory forms the hook, the other firms standing their ground get namechecked as well:
Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie too
Fought for the law when few dared to
Susman Godfey answered the call
Suing the powers that threatened us all.
This should not slap as hard as it does. Honestly, hearing big-buck law firms honored in song should feel cringe — shades of Everyone’s A Winner at Nixon Peabody — but there’s something about the genre that makes it work better than Nixon’s weird pop nonsense.
And the firms on the flipside of the Trump fight get some publicity too:
But others knelt and sold their name
Skadden, Paul, Weiss — what a shame
$100 million won’t buy back your soul
When you traded the law to keep your role
Some of the other surrender monkeys get called out too. There’s a good amount of detail packed into this piece so if you’re looking for a quick recap of the last couple months of Above the Law coverage, it’s pretty much all here.
The song even calls out that gumbo recipe!
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
