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The growing attack on Law Firms, Diversity and the rule of Law [1]

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Date: 2025-04-10

Besides tariffs against every nation on earth and attacking our government itself, the Drumpf administration is staging a quiet coup against the legal profession, attacking large law firms over DEI and obtaining a commitment from them to provide him $millions in pro-bono work.

Just imagine what that pro-bono work might ultimately be — defending the rights of the government to yank LGBTQ youth off the streets and house them in Gitmo for forced Conversion Therapy treatments?

Rachel Cohen former associate from the firm Skadden Arps has stood up and stands out against this slowly rising tide.

First off, law firms have every right to implement DEI policies which are perfectly legal and appropriate. They don’t need to capitulate, they can fight back and likely win against these attacks, but many firms have chosen not to, which is a tragedy.

From Above the Law.

The Trump administration continues to openly target Biglaw firms for their representation of clients and causes adverse to the president’s political agenda. Three top firms — Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie, and Paul Weiss — have found themselves on the receiving end of Trump’s retaliatory executive orders, which strip attorneys of their security clearances, terminate the firms’ government contracts, and limit lawyers’ access to government buildings. On top of these (likely unconstitutional) executive actions, Trump has sicced the EEOC on 20 additional Biglaw firms over their DEI policies, with the agency launching full-scale investigations into their alleged “unlawful” employment practices. One of these legal elites, Paul Weiss, has already capitulated to Trump’s demands, kissing the presidential ring to escape the financial consequences of an executive order that could wreak havoc upon the firm. All the while, Biglaw leaders have remained silent, despite being faced with calls to stand up to the Trump administration and defend the rule of law. One brave Biglaw associate has quite frankly had enough of this, and she’s once again sounding off — not just before her firm, but before the entire legal profession — to make clear just how important it is not to bow down before the Trump administration. You may remember Rachel Cohen, a third-year finance associate at Skadden, as the one who worked to put together the open letter that’s been signed by more than 600 associates, asking that Biglaw’s leaders speak up in defense of the legal profession. Now, she’s given her “conditional” two weeks’ notice via firmwide email, due to the leading law firm’s failure to address and admonish Trump’s revenge tour against Biglaw. Here’s an excerpt from her letter: The firm has been given time and opportunity to do the right thing. Thus far, we have not. This is a moment that demands urgency. Whether we are failing to meet it because we are unprepared or because we don’t wish to is irrelevant to me—and to the world—where the outcome is the same. If we were going to resist, we would have done so already. If we were not going to respond to the EEOC (a refusal that would be fully legal), the firm would have already told us. This is the first firmwide email that has been sent on this topic. What. Are. We. Doing. Colleagues, if you question if it is as bad as you think it is, it is ten times worse. Whether what we measure is the cowardice in face of lost profits, or the proximity to authoritarianism, or the trauma inflicted on our colleagues who are nonwhite, or the disappointment that I feel in this moment, take what you suspect and multiply it by a factor of ten. Act accordingly. I recognize not everyone is positioned as I am, and cannot act the same way. But do not recruit for this firm if they cannot protect their employees. Do not pretend that what is happening is normal or excusable. It isn’t. Rachel Cohen is surely not the only lawyer in the Biglaw world who feels this way — but she’s the only one brave enough to state her case publicly. “We do not have time,” Cohen writes. “It is now or it is never, and if it is never, I will not continue to work here.”

Many firms who have capitulated to Drumphfs demands have argued that they need to “keep their heads down” for now so that they can survive to fight another day.

But if you really plan to fight now is the time not at some other date when Drumpf’s growing entrenchment in the legal profession has become fully dug in. They see this as mitigating the short-term threats to their profits and partner profits, but what about the long-term threat to our entire society?

If agencies like these just knuckle under — who will be able to stand in the breach when things become truly dire?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/10/2315680/-The-growing-attack-on-Law-Firms-Diversity-and-the-rule-of-Law?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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