Biglaw, Politics

Stats of The Week: Not All Biglaw Firms Publicly Sad To See Legal Services For The Poor Eliminated

Major law firms are presenting a not-quite-unified front against the proposed ditching of the Legal Services Corporation.

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stat imageIt’s been more than a month since the since the administration — you know the one I’m talking about — issued its budget plan, which promised to finally rid the nation of feckless burdens such as Meals on Wheels and Big Bird. Also slated for defunding: the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). The LSC was established under Nixon and today is the single largest source of funding for civil legal assistance to the nation’s poor. (For the full story, read David Lash’s post.)

In protest, the leaders of more than 150 law firms signed a letter sent to Office of Management and Budget. The letter read in part:

Eliminating the LSC will not only imperil the ability of civic legal aid organizations to serve American in need, it will vastly diminish the private bar’s the private bar’s capacity to help these individuals. The pro bono activity facilitated by LSC funding is exactly the kind of public-private partnership the government should encourage, not eliminate.

Moreover, LSC-funded civil legal aid is essential to individuals living in rural areas that large law firms have difficulty serving because of the lawyers’ geographic location and/or bar membership. In many counties across our nation, LSC grantees are the only available help for low-income Americans.

The irony in that second paragraph is of the “bitter” flavor. Anyway, not every Biglaw firm leader signed off. A glance at the list of signatories makes a rebuttable presumption that every major firm leader in the country was given the opportunity to add his name. (Except maybe Jones Day, because why even bother?) To have declined seems much less trivial than, say, refusing to share some “I hate cancer” meme on Facebook. Below are the dozen eleven most prominent — in one opinion — firms that made the decision not to protest the elimination of the LSC. I’m sure everyone had a great reason.

  • Boies Schiller
  • Cahill Gordon
  • Greenberg Traurig
  • Irell & Manella
  • K&L Gates
  • Paul Hastings
  • Schulte Roth
  • Wachtell
  • Williams & Connolly
  • White & Case
  • Willkie Farr

UPDATE: one firm has contacted us to let us know that they were “mistakenly left off of an earlier letter” to OMB, so that firm has been deleted from the above list.

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Brian Dalton is the director of research for Breaking Media. Feel free to email him with any questions or comments.

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