Law Schools

T14 Law School Groups Taking A Stand Against Biglaw Mandatory Arbitration Agreements

And they're putting their money where their mouth is..

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The movement against mandatory arbitration agreements at Biglaw firm’s is heating up. We’ve told you about the work that a group of Harvard Law student activists, organized under the Pipeline Parity Project, have been taking against the clauses. They targeted Kirkland & Ellis’s arbitration agreements and got the firm to do away with them, Sidley caved even before they were the focus of Pipeline Parity’s focus, and their campaign against DLA Piper’s agreements is ongoing.

Now women’s law associations at elite law schools have joined in the fight. In a joint letter student organizations from Yale Law School, Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School, Berkeley Law School, University of Pennsylvania Law School, University of Chicago Law School, Cornell Law School, and NYU Law School called out forced arbitration as “a process which advantages sophisticated, repeat players at the expense of individual claimants.” Additionally, the organization have pledged not to take any money or promote the firms in any way to their membership, from a firm that still uses mandatory arbitration agreements.

We, the 2018-2019 boards of women’s law associations at law schools across the country, will no longer accept any funds from any law firm that requires employees to sign mandatory arbitration agreements (per the results of the survey from this past summer) or refuses to disclose in future surveys whether or not they do so. We will not promote these firms to our members in any way. We know that many law students have already committed to spending next summer or year with these firms, and we understand that those choices are complex and personal. We hope that using our collective voices to oppose pernicious employment practices will ensure that future students do not have to weigh the harm of signing a mandatory arbitration agreement when deciding where to work.

In addition, Yale Law Women (YLW) is committing to including questions about employment practices, such as the use of mandatory arbitration, in the annual flagship reports of the YLW Top Ten Firms for Gender Equity and Family Friendliness.

Finally, we recognize that mandatory arbitration is a policy that negatively impacts all workers, legal and non-legal, and not merely associates and summer associates. We are committed to including questions about employment practices for all employees in future surveys.

In an era where law firms are desperately trying to increase diversity at their firms, hopefully this will put some additional pressure on the firms that have, so far, stuck with arbitration agreements.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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