One of the most memorable photographs from the 2025 presidential inauguration showed President Trump at the Resolute Desk with a large pile of binders as he signed new executive orders (EOs) targeting his highest-priority campaign issues.¹ Since then, there have been many legal actions fighting these EOs, so keeping track of both the orders and the litigation relating to them is crucial for many attorneys.

Attorneys in many areas of practice need to know how to keep up with the latest EOs, as these orders may impact the funding, operations, staff or rights of the companies, individuals, and organizations they represent. Those who typically practice outside of federal administrative law may be less familiar with researching EOs, beyond what they learned in law school. As a starting point, Black’s Law Dictionary defines an executive order as “[a]n order issued by or on behalf of the President, usually intended to direct or instruct the actions of executive agencies or government officials, or to set policies for the executive branch to follow that must be first published in the Federal Register to be valid.”²

OFFICIAL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESOURCES

The official White House website’s “Presidential Actions” section is where President Trump’s EOs are first made available, listed by date, with most recent orders listed first.³ Additionally, the section includes memoranda, proclamations, and information on presidential nominations and appointments. EOs become valid upon their publication in the Federal Register, which is published every business day except federal holidays.⁴ The National Archives’ official Federal Register website has a section of presidential documents, including EOs, and a disposition table by EO number with PDFs of each order.⁵ Another excellent resource for presidential documents is the Government Publishing Office’s GovInfo website, with all U.S. EOs since 1933.⁶ To search the website, I recommend going to “Browse” and clicking on the letter “E” and then “Executive Orders from 1933 to the Present.” From there, you can use the tools on the left side of the page to narrow results by date or topic.

EXECUTIVE ORDER TRACKERS

Some of the most comprehensive and up-to-date EO tracker sites are Akin Gump’s “Executive Order Tracker” and Mayer Brown’s “Trump 2.0: Executive Order Tracker.” Akin Gump’s “Executive Order Tracker” blog has links to a summary of orders by date, and the site can also be filtered by category or searched by keyword.⁷ Mayer Brown’s “Trump 2.0” website contains EOs (organized by topic) and “Relevant Legal Updates” with summaries and a downloadable spreadsheet of 2025 executive orders.⁸ The Brookings Institution’s “Tracking Regulatory Changes in the Second Trump Administration” site, written by Brookings scholars, tracks EOs, status updates, rule changes, background information, timelines, and impacts of EOs.⁹

“RELATED LITIGATION” TRACKERS

Legal news websites have put together some of the best EO-related litigation trackers. Court Watch’s “Lawsuits Related to Trump Admin Actions” are listed by filing date, and the site is updated daily.¹⁰ Each entry has docket information and trial documents available to download without cost (although with links to PACER). Another excellent website is Just Security’s “Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions.”¹¹ It contains overviews, summaries, free trial documents, and updates for each lawsuit by Just Security’s staff. Law360’s “Trump’s Legal Battles” site does not require a subscription to view the listings; however, a subscription is required to retrieve docket listings or documents linked.¹² Updated frequently, Law360 lists lawsuits by EO topic, with listings color-coded by party names, presiding judge, and status of case.¹³

PAID LEGAL RESEARCH DATABASES

For Westlaw Precision subscribers, a 2025 Trump Administration Toolkit and 2025 Trump Administration Transition Toolkit: The First 100 Days are both included as a Practical Law Dynamic Tool Set enhancement.¹⁴ The first is organized by topics and practice area resources.¹⁵ The second has summaries of changes and links to practice notes, executive orders, and news.¹⁶ It is sometimes easier to find these toolkits by using an external search engine, using terms like “Westlaw Trump administration toolkit.”

Similarly, LexisNexis has its 2025 Executive Order and Actions Trackers resource kits in its “Practical Guidance” law product, listed under “Tools & Resources.”¹⁷ Users can search the Resource Kits section for “Executive Orders” or “Executive Actions” (within quotation marks) to find the trackers. The Presidential Executive Actions Tracker is updated twice weekly; LexisNexis subscribers can set up alerts for when new material is added. It contains links to EOs and presidential documents. LexisNexis’ EO litigation tracker is updated weekly.¹⁸ Information is somewhat less well-organized than similar litigation trackers; users may need to scroll throughout to find lawsuits or EOs of interest to them. Information is organized in boxes with party names, date filed, a summary, and status of the actions.

Bloomberg Law’s “In Focus: Executive Orders & Actions” (available through its Litigation Intelligence Center) is perhaps the best-organized and most comprehensive of the trackers by the “big three” of legal research vendors.¹⁹ Bloomberg Law’s “In Focus” page has many useful tools, including interactive tables, legal analysis and news, secondary sources, and a “Related Developments” tracker. Alerts for both case dockets and the Federal Register can be set up; users can choose materials by federal agency via the drop-down menu.

CONCLUSION/SUMMARY

As of this writing, President Trump has signed a total of 157 executive orders since Inauguration Day, with these documents intended to completely transform many of the operations of the federal government.²⁰ For attorneys knowing how to find the original documents, track litigation will be able to provide value to clients and their work. A more comprehensive treatment of the topic is available as a research guide on the Wayne State University Library System’s website under “2025 Executive Orders and Related Litigation.”²1