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.
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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.”
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Now is the time for you to follow suit. Shout from the rooftops that what is happening will lead to the death of the rule of law in America. It is crucial that you make your voices heard. Speak publicly about the way that Trump is misusing the justice system in order to seek retribution against those he deems to be his enemies. Protect the profession, and rise up to protect the rule of law.
UPDATE: Per Cohen’s most recent TikTok video, she has officially been removed from Skadden’s internal systems.
(Flip to the next page to read Rachel Cohen’s full letter.)
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.