in effect
This is Executive Order 14230, signed March 6, 2025, and published in the Federal Register on March 11, 2025. It is a presidential directive targeting the law firm Perkins Coie LLP, instructing federal agencies to review and roll back the firm’s access to security clearances, government contracts, federal buildings, and employment, and to examine hiring practices at large law firms. The order states its actions are based on the administration’s characterizations of the firm’s past legal work and its diversity-based hiring practices.
Agencies are directed to immediately suspend any active security clearances held by Perkins Coie personnel, pending review, and to stop providing government goods, property, and facilities (including secure intelligence facilities) that benefit the firm. Contracting agencies must require contractors to disclose any business they do with Perkins Coie, and agency heads must review and, where legally possible, terminate contracts tied to the firm; within 30 days of the order, every agency must report its contract assessment and actions to the Office of Management and Budget. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is directed to review hiring practices at large, influential law firms under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and the Attorney General is to investigate such firms that do business with the government. Agencies are also told to limit Perkins Coie employees’ access to federal buildings and official interactions, and to refrain from hiring the firm’s employees without an agency-head waiver. The order specifies these steps are to be taken “to the extent permitted by law” and subject to available funding.
The most direct targets are Perkins Coie LLP, its attorneys and staff (who may lose clearances, building access, and federal job prospects), and its applicants. Federal contractors and other entities that do business with the firm are affected because they must disclose that relationship and may see related contracts reviewed or terminated. More broadly, other large law firms fall within scope through the directed EEOC review and Attorney General investigation of their hiring practices; the order also notes it creates no legal rights enforceable against the government.