For the past few years, journalists covering the legal sector have spent much of their time figuring out where exactly Big Law sits in the so-called ‘culture wars’ - a global phenomenon born on the battleground of very-online liberal and conservative hard-liners, that is today firmly established in mainstream politics.
The challenge for law firms had until recently been how to respond to those movements that sowed the seeds of the ‘wars’, chiefly #MeToo and Black Lives Matter.
Law firms carefully marshaled their press, posting statements of sympathy to their websites and on social media, and even opened their wallets; in 2020, Kirkland & Ellis, for example, made a $5 million donation to racial justice causes.
Firms were at turns praised and parodied for how they responded to these generation-defining social moments, lauded for speaking out, called out for insincerity; but it seldom got worse than quibbling exchanges on LinkedIn. But what few could have predicted is that the law firms would themselves, five years later, become the subject of the culture war, courtesy of U.S. President Donald Trump.
In his first broadside against corporate DEI, Trump, in early March, issued an executive order against Covington & Burling, then Perkins Coie, having directed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. attorney general to review the DEI practices of “large, influential, or industry-leading law firms”. Since then, a succession of Big Law firms have been hit with executive orders, the latest being litigation heavyhitter Jenner & Block and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr. They were among a sweep of law firms that the EEOC has so far targeted.
Playing out very publicly is not just Trump's willingness to test the limits of executive power, but also how Big Law has responded to the executive orders. After Covington & Perkins was hit, it sent ruptures through the industry. But it was when Trump came for Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison that the furore spilled over into the mainstream, with chairman Brad Karp having to defend both himself and his firm after he took unprecedented action to swerve Trump retributive rampage - a move that scores of commentators, both legal and non, have labelled a round ‘capitulation’ to Trump’s demands.
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom preemptively agreed a "settlement" with Trump on Friday, encapsulating how panic-stricken New York's elite had become.
The most vocal critics, and there are many of them, have been law firm associates, none louder than former Skadden associate Rachel Cohen...
