Small Law Firms

Biglaw: I Worry My Work Hurts People. This Firm: Hold My Beer!

The NY firm at the heart of the effort to keep us sick with COVID forever.

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Sure, it’s not great that your Am Law 20 law firm represents Globetronics in a case about the legality of reclassifying factory workers as contractors to pay them $2/hour to dump oil directly into the Gulf of Mexico. But at least you’re not these folks!

Yesterday, the Washington Post did a deep dive into the efforts of NY-based Siri Gilmstad, a law firm that’s billed millions to the cause of indulging anti-vaccination conspiracies. With a niche practice like that, it’s little surprise that the firm’s taken the lead in pushing back against COVID vaccine mandates cropping up out there.

The resistance to the COVID vaccine harnesses two different vectors of resistance. First, the already bubbling anti-vaccination sentiment driven by now-debunked research linking vaccinations to autism and an admittedly non-crazy skepticism of the intentions of big pharmaceutical concerns and the perceived revolving door at the FDA. But at the end of the day, while approving new pills for problems you never knew you had just in time for quarterly earning calls may seem shady, the science behind “not dying from measles” remains sound. And second, the mask warriors who transformed “not wanting to kill grandma” into a culture war over proper Home Depot attire and have blown that out into “we refuse to wear masks OR get the shot that will end mask mandates.” It all adds up to a demand for legal services that Siri Glimstad is here to milk.

In legal filings and letters to employers and universities, attorneys from Siri & Glimstad focus on the expedited process known as an emergency use authorization used to clear the shots during a public health emergency. Mandating a vaccine cleared that way, they argue in a complaint filed against the Durham County Sheriff’s Department, is “illegal and unenforceable.”

This reliance on Emergency Use Authorization is hogwash, but it’s fashionable hogwash that permeates MAGA boards. In reality there’s no discernible difference between the EUA approval and the regular approval. As the Post reports, “‘The FDA required as much for this EUA as it requires for full approval,’ said Dan Troy, a former chief counsel to the agency.” But because EUA is, as the name suggests, an emergency protocol, there’s not a lot of precedent surrounding it and since nature abhors a vacuum, Siri Glimstad’s lawyers are rushing in to bully employers by suggesting future legal action if vaccinations are mandated.

Alas, no janky C&D letter is complete without a comical legal overreach.

Their arguments go further. Pointing to the principle of informed consent, a tenet of medical ethics addressing human experimentation enshrined in the Nuremberg Code after World War II, their letter to the president of Rutgers University contends a mandate under these circumstances violates not just federal law, but also “international laws, civil and individual rights, and public policy.” Failure to rescind a requirement in Rock County, Wis., the firm informed officials there, “will result in legal action being filed against you.”

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A lesson from my former colleague Bess Levin: “A good rule of thumb that some but not all people are aware of is that when you’re talking about the Holocaust, you probably shouldn’t equate it with anything other than actual genocide.” It would shock those drafting international law in the wake of the horrors of WWII to learn that they’re being cited to prevent efforts to curb a deadly pandemic, but time makes fools of us all!

“Govern yourself accordingly,” the Feb. 2 letter advised.

Cool story, bro.

Unfortunately, as we all know, it’s not about the merits of threats like these, but the nuisance cost of fighting the case. How many tiny companies are willing to risk getting dragged into litigation over a dubious but nonetheless unsettled corner of the law. Delta Airlines is going with a vaccine mandate — because their business involves breathing recycled air for hours on end inside a tin can — and has the resources to throw down if some random employee tries to file a complaint.

But not every company or school is Delta.

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So when you end up sitting in a cubicle next to a COVID vector, let’s remember the hard legal work of zealously advocating for wackos that brought us there.

Resistance to vaccine mandates is building. A powerful network is helping. [Washington Post]

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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