A former Texas lawyer general who advocated in favour of abortion restrictions. Two former clerks of Judge Clarence Thomas, one of the most conservative members of the Supreme Court. And a one-time advisor to the Trump organization.
These are some of the conservative legal heavyweights Harvard University hired to win a lawsuit against the Trump administration.
The A-list squadron of Republican lawyers is a departure from when Harvard last faced a headline legal battle. At the time, in 2022, Harvard defended positive action, turning to businesses that have long been associated with the university.
But the Trump administration has taken away the legal landscape.
Now, Wilmer Hale is under attack by the administration itself and is fighting its own battle. And Harvard faces a fundamental threat after rejecting a list of administrative requests, including eliminating professors who are “more committed to activities than scholarships” and banning international students who oppose “American values.”
Unlike last time, if it loses, it has billions of dollars in federal funds on the line.
Legal observers say Harvard is likely to win legal merits. Although the case could face headwinds if it reaches the Supreme Court, the conservative lawyers roster was designed to give the university a boost in front of the court with the Republican-appointed super-majority of justice.
Aaron Tan, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said: “This is academic freedom. You should appeal to someone beyond political sphere.”
Former University of Michigan President Lee C. Bollinger said he used the same strategy in 2003 when he chose his lawyer to argue a positive action case in the Supreme Court.
“We know exactly what Harvard is thinking when hiring these attorneys,” he said.
The Supreme Court swing vote at the time was Reagan's appointee, Judge Sandra Day O'Connor. Michigan chose attorney Maureen E. Mahony, who served as secretary to Republican appointee William H. Lanequist, who was the Supreme Court's Supreme Court when the Supreme Court heard about the case.
“I knew that Sandra Day O'Connor was likely a critical vote, and I wanted someone who really understood what she thought and how she thought about the incident,” Bollinger, who became president of Columbia University, said in a phone interview.
The strategy worked. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Michigan.
Harvard did not comment on this article. The lawsuit against the government alleges that the Trump administration's order violates the initial amendment in several ways. The university's debate also relies on the Administrative Procedure Act, a more inexplicable law that facilitates the process by which federal agencies develop rules and impose penalties. The university said the government ignored its own requirements to cut federal funding.
Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School, secretary for Judge O'Connor, said Harvard's roster of lawyers “emphasizes how deeply we are broken at this difficult moment in our country's history.”
And for the attorneys involved, there are some risks to assume Harvard as a client. One of his lawyers, William A. Burke, recently advised the Trump organization when he moved to fire him because he agreed to represent Harvard.
Seventeen lawyers are officially registered with Harvard teams, and there are probably others who work behind the scenes.
Not all of them are known to be in line with conservative causes. Joshua S. Levy, for example, was a Boston US lawyer who was part of Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s presidency. He is currently a company's Rope & Gray partner. (Harvard is still working with Wilmer Hale on other issues.)
But Burke, a partner at Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan's company, is a Yale Law alumnus who scribed for Judge Reagan M. Kennedy, who retired in 2018. Republican party warrior.
At least seven other lawyers in the group are written for Republican-designated Supreme Court justice, including four sitting justice before or during his tenure in Washington.
In addition to Burck's company, at least three other companies are working on the Harvard University case, including Lehotsky Keller Cohn. Stephen P. Lehotsky, a Harvard graduate who secretary for former judge Antonin Scalia, worked for the Justice Department's Office of General Counsel during Bush's administration, according to someone familiar with strategies that are familiar with the terms of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Lehotsky, one of the lawyers who appeared on behalf of Harvard University in court on Monday for a case meeting, did not respond to an email.
One of Lehotsky's partners, Scott Keller, is the former Texas attorney general who defends the state's strict restrictions on abortion clinics and considers Republican Sen. Ted Cruz as the leader. Another Harvard graduate, Jonathan F. Kohn, was scribed for Judge Thomas.
The Harvard team also includes King & Spalding partner Robert K. Herr. Hur, who wrote for the Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist, is probably best known for investigating Biden in classified document cases.
Full, a US lawyer for Maryland for most of Trump's first term, concluded that the prosecution had inadequate grounds, but still sparked a fire by calling Biden a “older man with poor memory.”
Harvard's strategy has been successful before, but there are risks as well.
“You really need to be careful,” Bollinger said. “If you're trying to feel like the people you're claiming are trying to manipulate them by the type of lawyer you have, then you can oppose it.”
