Alan Trammell Quoted in USA Today Trammell was among a number of legal scholars addressing the impacts of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on nationwide injunctions.

By Law Communications
July 23, 2025

Washington and Lee Law Professor Alan Trammell was quoted in a USA Today article on methods for challenging executive orders and other policies following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. CASA, where the Court ruled that federal district court judges do not have authority to issue orders that apply beyond parties to a specific case—known as nationwide or universal injunctions.

The article examined other legal strategies that allow opponents to challenge federal policies— including class-action lawsuits and administrative challenges—which have been employed recently to block President Trump’s actions on birthright citizenship, deportations under the Alien Enemies Act and layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Trammell told USA Today that following Trump v. CASA class actions “are going to bear a whole lot more of the weight of this litigation” and that the high court is likely to apply heightened scrutiny to the class certification process.

“Depending on your perspective, there is the risk or the possibility that there will be these snap decisions or what somebody referred to as drive-by class actions when it’s supposed to be a fairly rigorous process,” Trammell told USA Today.

Professor Trammell teaches and writes primarily in the fields of civil procedure, federal courts, and conflict of laws. He is recognized as one of the leading authorities on nationwide injunctions and has been invited to present his research at numerous conferences and on podcasts. His scholarship has appeared in the Columbia Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Texas Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. In 2023, he was invited to present his article “The False Promise of Jurisdiction Stripping” at the prestigious Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum. In 2024, he was recognized with the John W. Elrod Law Alumni Fellowship for teaching excellence.

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