Seventeen former D.C. Bar presidents and several voluntary bar associations are urging a federal judge to allow the American Bar Association's (ABA) lawsuit over President Donald Trump's executive orders targeting law firms to move forward, regardless of the fact multiple such firms have cut deals with the administration. "The formal steps taken by the Trump Administration to penalize and intimidate the President's perceived political enemies profoundly affect all lawyers, and most particularly those in the seat of government where we and others practice law," said the Thursday filing. Calling it an "extraordinary time in the history of our democracy," such that even filing an amicus brief of this nature "potentially places us at personal risk of reprisal from the Trump Administration," dozens of lawyers and the Hispanic Bar Association of D.C., the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association, the National Bar Association, the Trial Lawyers Association, and the Women's Bar Association of D.C. collectively asserted that sounding the alarm over the bigger picture is "imperative." In June, the ABA said Trump's executive orders amounted to an "unconstitutional" and "unlawful policy of intimidation against lawyers and law firms" as part of the president's revenge campaign against political rivals. The ABA is "shadowboxing without a shadow" and, as a result, has reached a "dead end," the government said.