Late last week, news broke that a group of former associates who resigned over their Biglaw firms’ deals to ingratiate Donald Trump with millions of dollars’ worth of pro bono payola had launched a new campaign targeting partners on their former firms’ management committees. Do partners who have signed on to piss-poor deals with the Trump administration deserve to be on corporate, industry, and nonprofit boards? This group says no, and they’re inviting the public to weigh in as well through a persuasive email-writing campaign.
The group — led by Rachel Cohen, the former Skadden associate who publicly condemned Trump’s threat to the rule of law before many others found the strength to join her — has distributed a toolkit naming leaders at each of the nine firms that capitulated to Trump’s demands. Cohen wants members of the public to “help … hold law firm decision-makers accountable” by getting them removed from boards because “[t]heir judgment cannot be trusted.”
Here she is, explaining what she’d like people to do to get these partners kicked off their boards:
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“It turns out partners are really, really pissed about this,” Cohen says, before continuing in a faux plaintive tone, “so I really wouldn’t want us to send a bunch more emails and I really wouldn’t want you to share this video or share the toolkit with your friends because I feel so bad.”
If you want to “hit [these partners] where it hurts” and make them even more “livid,” now you know what to do.
Ex-Associates Say Trump Deals Render Big Law Leaders Unfit for Board Positions, Launch Campaign for Their Removal [American Lawyer]
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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.