Attorney Joseph D. Steinfield lives in Keene and Jaffrey. He can be reached at joe@joesteinfield.com.

Lawyers, myself included, have long known of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, which used to be a one-location New York law firm and now has over 1,000 lawyers and offices in other American cities and around the world. It was seen by many as the gold standard for high-quality work and dedication to the rule of law.

Now, the firm has become widely known for how it responded to the Trump administration’s attack, which the firm’s leadership considered an existential threat.

President Trump’s executive order said that all Paul Weiss lawyers’ security clearances were being revoked, that Paul Weiss lawyers would not be allowed to enter federal buildings and that all of the firm’s federal contracts were being revoked. The reason stated in the order? ”Unethical attorney Mark Pomerantz,” formerly a Paul Weiss lawyer, had assisted the Manhattan District Attorney “to manufacture a prosecution against me.” The order does not mention that a jury convicted Trump on 34 felony counts, convictions now being appealed.

We will never know whether the firm could have survived if it had gone on offense and fought it out in court. Rather than run that risk, they made a deal with Trump. The head of the firm, a lawyer named Brad Karp, sent a memo to all Paul Weiss personnel, more than 2,000 people, explaining that the decision was guided by “our clients’ interests” and by “our fiduciary duty” to protect the firm’s lawyers and staff.

It would be presumptuous of me to stand in judgment. Karp did what he thought was right, or at least what he thought he had to do.

Instead, I worry about the broader implications of this confrontation. If it were just a fight between an aggressive president and a large law firm, then it’s no big deal, and we can talk about other things. But if, as I fear, it is an “existential” moment for the rule of law, then we cannot shrug it off so easily.

All of us, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, should be worried. The rule of law is the foundation of our democracy. When heads of government ignore the rule of law, they are not the ones who suffer. It’s ordinary people.

The Fourteenth Amendment entitles all “persons”— not just citizens — to due process and equal protection of the law. Who stands up in court to represent those persons? Lawyers.

Whether it’s Thurgood Marshall going from courthouse to courthouse in the South during the 1940s, Boston’s Joseph Welch challenging Sen. Joe McCarthy on national television in the 1950s, Boston’s Mary Bonauto appearing before the Supreme Court a decade ago on behalf of same-sex couples or any number of others one could name, the responsibility for the preservation of life and liberty and equal protection of the law requires lawyers willing to take on the government. They don’t need any elected official’s permission or approval to do so.

A president who threatens a law firm’s existence based on whom it has hired or the clients it has represented has challenged the freedom of lawyers to engage in the zealous representation of clients, which often means challenging governmental action. Combined with calling for the impeachment of judges who rule against the government, this Trump initiative represents a serious intrusion on how our legal system operates and on the rule of law itself.

As part of its deal with Trump, Paul Weiss agreed to perform $40 million dollars’ worth of pro bono work on behalf of causes with which the President agrees. That may be a drop in the bucket for Paul Weiss, but it’s no small matter. Assuming most of the work is performed by junior lawyers, for whom the firm charges $1,000 per hour (I’m not making that figure up), that comes to 40,000 hours of lawyers doing what the President wants them to do.

Is the firm, or the Skadden Arps firm that made a $100 million pro bono commitment to “settle” with Trump, free to represent pro bono clients on behalf of causes the administration does not support? Mr. Karp’s memo says that it will do so and that the firm’s culture and values “will remain unchanged.” That may be true, but if the firm agrees to represent a pro bono client facing a death sentence or a green card holder fighting deportation, will Trump say they broke the deal? I wouldn’t put it past him.

Trump’s success in this case has emboldened him to do more of the same. Over 500 law firms have gone public in support of Perkins Coie, but most of the county’s biggest firms have remained silent.

All of us have a stake in whether law firms dig in their heels or follow in the footsteps of Paul Weiss.