“Sorry baby, I work for Cooley”
The hits just keep on coming for those attorneys who still dream of squeezing a personal life into their 2500-hour year. No sooner do we learn that yet another woman has joined the multimillion-dollar suit against MoFo alleging systemic discrimination against young mothers trying to raise a family while lawyering, do we have an unfortunate screencap from the ranks of Biglaw.
The good folks at Cooley LLP are giving their associates a preview of life in Brett Kavanaugh’s America:
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Look, content filtering is a clumsy business and no doubt a stupid algorithm buried within the Cooley LLP systems just saw the word “sex” somewhere on the Planned Parenthood website and decided to block it. Why a law firm of purported professionals would be content blocking anything other than security risks is a whole other question, but the point is, it’s unlikely that someone in Cooley management thought it was high time to crack down on pap smears.
UPDATE: A tipster points out that “PlannedParenthood.com” is just a redirect to “PlannedParenthood.org” and that Cooley’s set up may block redirects. That’s certainly a possibility too.
Nonetheless, it’s not the best look for a firm that just revised its bonus policy to throw another hurdle in the path of new parents, announcing that it would no longer credit maternity leave for the purpose of bonuses — despite simultaneously reporting record profits. And while there will be contrarians suggesting that attorneys need to be handling these matters on their own time, this overlooks the fact that modern Biglaw takes so much time out of their attorneys that basic errands like scheduling doctor’s appointments during reasonable hours require doing some personal tasks while at the office. Cooley has offered a “snooze or cruise” perk to allow associates to arrive late or leave early, but that’s hardly a replacement for being able to schedule one’s real life during a 10-minute break in the day.
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Come on, Cooley, we thought you were cool.
Hopefully, Cooley will take this opportunity to do a little editing of their content blocking rules, but to be honest they’ll probably never see this article because if they’ve blocked Planned Parenthood, I can only imagine what klaxons sound if someone tries to read Above the Law.
Earlier: Yikes: Biglaw Firm’s New Bonus Policy Is Bad News For New Parents
Pregnancy Discrimination Lawsuit Against MoFo Spirals And Gets Yet Another Plaintiff
Joe 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.