When Your Client Controls Both Sides of the Lawsuit: What Trump v. IRS Teaches Lawyers

Most coverage of Trump v. Internal Revenue Service has focused on the president and the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that briefly emerged from the settlement. The more durable lesson is about lawyers. When one person controls both the plaintiff and the defendant, the adversarial system loses its usual safeguard, and the only check left is the lawyers’ own obligations to the court.

On September 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit declined to stay the core of U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams’s sanctions order. The appeal continues. The lesson does not depend on how it ends.

A $10 Billion Lawsuit Against the Government the Plaintiff Runs

In January 2026, Donald Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric and the Trump Organization sued the IRS and the Treasury Department for $10 billion over a former IRS contractor’s leak of Trump’s tax information. Both defendants sit within the executive branch Trump heads. In May, the Justice Department announced a settlement that included the $1.776 billion fund and a directive from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche shielding the Trump family and business from audits. Blanche rescinded the fund in August after Republican pushback. The audit directive remains.

In July, Williams found that the suit was brought for an improper purpose and that the parties were never genuinely opposed. She found that the government had not defended the case the way the Justice Department has defended similar claims. She referred Trump attorney Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar, barred attorney Daniel Epstein from seeking pro hac vice admission in her district for a year and prohibited the parties from citing the settlement in official proceedings. The Eleventh Circuit left all of it in place, noting that the plaintiffs “did not submit or offer any evidence to explain their litigation conduct.”

On appeal, the Justice Department, nominally the defendant, filed a brief supporting Trump. Both sides of the “v.” are now making the same argument.

Courts Do Not Decide Arranged Disputes

Federal courts decide real disputes. They do not referee scripted ones. The Supreme Court dismissed a feigned controversy in Lord v. Veazie (1850) and a suit the nominal defendant had financed in United States v. Johnson (1943). In United States v. Windsor (2013), when the executive branch agreed with the plaintiff, the Court reached the merits only because a House-appointed group stepped in to argue the other side. A court can find an adversary when one is missing. First it has to notice. When lawyers on both sides present an arranged case as an ordinary dispute, the lawyers become the court’s main source of information about whether a real controversy exists.

Rule 11 Asks Why a Lawsuit Was Filed

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 is usually treated as a rule against frivolous claims. But Rule 11(b)(1) separately requires a lawyer to certify that a pleading “is not being presented for any improper purpose.” That certification did the work here. A tax-disclosure claim has a statutory basis. The question was whether the court was being asked to resolve a dispute or to lend its authority to a deal made elsewhere. A real grievance can still be filed for an improper purpose.

Courts also have inherent power, recognized in Chambers v. NASCO, Inc. (1991), to sanction bad-faith abuse of their process. That power protects the court’s own integrity, an interest separate from any party’s and from the bar’s. Williams did not wait for the Florida Bar to act.

The Official Is Not the Client

The deeper problem sits on the government’s side of the caption. Under Model Rule 1.13(a), a lawyer for an organization represents the organization, not the people who run it. Company counsel represents the corporation, not the CEO. Under 28 U.S.C. § 516, Justice Department lawyers represent the United States, and under 28 U.S.C. § 530Bthey answer to the same state ethics rules as everyone else.

When the president personally sues agencies he directs, the government lawyers’ client is still the United States. His interest as a plaintiff does not become the government’s interest because he sits atop the chain of command. Williams’s findings do not prove that any particular government lawyer broke an ethics rule. They do raise the question every lawyer in that seat must answer: Whose interests were you representing? The Justice Department’s brief supporting the plaintiff only sharpens it.

“The Client Wanted It” Is Not a Defense

Under Model Rule 1.2(a), clients set the objectives of a representation and decide whether to settle. They cannot waive the lawyer’s duties to bring only nonfrivolous proceedings, to be candid with the tribunal and to avoid conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. Those duties are owed to the court, not the client.

The Problem Reaches Well Beyond the White House

Few lawyers will represent a president suing his own government. Many will represent a governor with a claim against a state agency run by appointees, a parent company suing its subsidiary or a controlling shareholder suing the company. The names change. The obligations do not.

Counsel in those settings should make sure the controlled entity has its own lawyers and that its decisions are made, and documented, by people insulated from the adverse party. They should disclose the relationship to the court early, before a judge discovers it after a settlement is signed. They should read any settlement the way a skeptical judge would, because terms that favor the controlling person at the entity’s expense are exactly what Williams found. And if no one will defend the controlled entity, they should welcome a court-appointed adversary rather than resist one.

A Signature Is a Promise to the Court

Trump v. IRS does not mean a president cannot sue the government. It means that when the adversarial structure breaks down, the lawyers’ obligations are the last line of defense. A signature on a pleading promises that the court’s authority is being properly invoked. A government lawyer’s appearance promises that the United States, not the official in charge, is the client. No client, however powerful, can waive either promise.

A lawyer may help the parties settle. A lawyer may not manufacture a lawsuit to give a private deal the authority of a court. The court is not a prop, and unlike a client, it cannot be fired.