BOB SAFIAN: Hi, everyone. We have a special episode today about the world’s biggest law firms, which people don’t always think about as businesses, but they have tremendous economic weight. As advisors to the most significant companies and organizations in the world, their business choices have a ripple effect across the economy. Some of these prominent law firms have recently found themselves in President Trump’s crosshairs.

My guest today is Rachel Cohen, a young attorney who tried to get her firm, the prestigious and lucrative Skadden Arps, to fight the administration’s efforts, only to have her attempts rebuffed and to be effectively forced out of the firm. Rachel’s story is full of drama, frustration, and fears about how the rule of law is changing in America. It’s a story of how uncertainty is impacting even the most successful businesses, and it raises questions about the legal industry’s role in the checks and balances of the U.S. system.

For any business, it’s a window into the leadership challenges of this wider moment. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

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I’m Bob Safian. I’m here with Rachel Cohen. Rachel, thanks for joining us.

RACHEL COHEN: Thanks for having me, Bob.

The executive orders that shook the legal industry

SAFIAN: You are a Harvard-educated attorney. You landed a position at one of the most high-profile, most successful, most lucrative law firms in the world, Skadden Arps, but just recently, you quit in protest over a deal the firm made with the Trump administration. Can you take us through how all this unfolded? It started with an anonymous effort by young lawyers at the firm. Can you tell us the story?

COHEN: I’d love to. Just two quick things, Harvard- and Ohio State-educated, go Bucks, but Skadden is very prestigious, and it’s lucrative, and all of these things. I also love my coworkers, and that made it harder to walk away than any of the prestige or anything else. They’re really great people, and I actually think that that’s been borne out, because we’ve already seen multiple other people quit after the Skadden kind of capitulation to Trump.

Let’s jump back to what feels like a lifetime ago, but was actually less than a month ago, when the Perkins Executive Order, which was an executive order entered by Donald Trump targeting Perkins Coie, a large corporate law firm, was entered on March 6th.

That executive order targeted Perkins Coie and stripped them of security clearances, which are necessary for certain kinds of governmental work, and stripped them of government contracts, and also put pressure on third parties to disclose if they did business with Perkins Coie, so that if the government contracted with those third parties, they could reevaluate those contracts.

If you read the executive order all the way through, which a lot of attorneys, especially at large corporate law firms, did not have time to do, even though it’s two pages long, there’s a roadmap laid out by the president, that he is going to come after additional corporate law firms, and that he’s going to do it under the guise of kind of anti-DEI “equity pushback.”

The way that the current administration views inclusion efforts as outside of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and claims that they’re racial preference, which, having just worked at one of these firms, it’s a little ironic to walk through the halls, and we have glass office doors so you can see everybody. To allege that there’s any kind of anti-white bias in hiring in big law firms, it is a tough, tough thing to pitch. Equity partnerships are still, I believe, 88% white nationwide.

Just as a quick aside, these firms across the board had diversity, equity, and inclusion programs aimed at combating that, and so because of it, it gave the Trump administration a back door into attacking any law firm that he wanted on these grounds.

SAFIAN: You’re at Skadden when all of this is starting to come down towards Perkins Coie, which is not your firm. You’re not working with them. Why does it become something that you get involved with?

COHEN: Because I read the executive order all the way through, and I saw that he was going to come for other firms. Then there was another executive action the following day that was aimed at public service loan forgiveness, which is a program that a lot of public interest attorneys use. It listed things like immigration representation. It listed things like defending people who block highways, which is a thinly veiled way at getting to free speech.

The combination of those two things made it very clear to me that this was the beginning of a broad scale assault on the legal profession, especially because the president had put out a fact sheet the week prior, targeting Covington & Burling, not an executive order, but kind of the same thing, trying to punish people for doing past representation. Nobody had said anything.

At that point, I reached out internally to people that I trusted and said, “I just want to make sure that we’re paying attention to this. People in management, you read it, right? You saw that he outlined that he’s coming for additional corporate law firms? I assume that there’s some kind of industry-wide response, and I would like to know how I can be helpful there.”

If we’re not organizing around some type of collective response to stand up for lawyers’ rights to represent whatever client they choose to represent, and not have those views imputed to them, that’s a foundation of the American legal system. We’re really powerful within that system, and we should be doing something to defend it.

Inside Rachel Cohen’s stance against Trump’s executive orders

SAFIAN: They don’t respond. You then take it upon yourself to do what?

COHEN: I must give credit where it’s due. I got one response that was, “Thanks, Rachel. Always appreciate your perspective.” The email I had sent, literally, Bob, was like, “The sky is falling. This is the beginning of autocracy.” “Thanks, Rachel. Always appreciate your perspective.” In the background, I and a couple of friends are working on a plan B. We are looking at the problem of everybody knows that this is happening.

Big law has a huge collective action problem. People are terrified of losing their jobs, because there are not a lot of jobs that pay starting over $200,000 a year. If you’ve planned your financial future around that kind of income, even if you leave your firm, it’s very important to not be blacklisted within the industry. How do we take these risk-averse attorneys and get them motivated to take any kind of collective action? What we came up with was this kind of anonymized letter.

We write this open letter that’s very focused on rule of law concerns. The first 100 signatories were only word of mouth. We had some phone trees going, people signed on. We knew that all 100 of those people, even though I don’t know who all of them are, they are all who they say they are. As soon as it went live, I posted it on LinkedIn in full, and identified myself as a signatory, and was very proud of that judgment call. As soon as we posted it on Reddit, someone responded and said, “I don’t know the value of something that you’re not putting your name on.”

I responded in that comment with a link to my LinkedIn post and said, “My name’s on it.” We’re circulating that, it’s getting hundreds of signatories, but it’s very non-confrontational, and doing some media around it. No one’s really sure within the firm how to proceed. It was a very weird week of going into work.

Skadden’s internal struggle

SAFIAN: The people you work with know that you’re the one, because you’re the one whose name is on this. Does this make the firm more likely to be a target of the administration, then?

COHEN: It was a question that I asked myself, because the initial Perkins Coie executive order said, “We are looking at 15 to 20 other law firms,” and not to sound like a Skadden attorney, but I’m sorry, if you’re looking at big representative law firms in the country that are known for public interest work or pro bono work, rather, you’re looking at Skadden Arps. I don’t think there was any way to avoid that.

The acting commissioner of the EEOC, Andrea Lucas, sends out 20 EEOC demand letters that request personal information of applicants to the firm for the last over five years, and we’re one of the firms that received that letter. I find it highly unlikely that any of the organizing that I and my friends were doing influenced that.

All of a sudden, it’s gone from these kind of real but esoteric rule of law concerns, to concerns about, “Are you going to give the Trump administration my cell phone number?,” especially when these EEOC demand letters request that information in a way that really zeros in on people who applied through diversity fellowships, or something called the SEO fellowship, which was historically open to people from marginalized backgrounds.

SAFIAN: The EEOC is asking these law firms for names, email, and phone number contact for anyone who’s applied to these programs and anyone who’s been hired?

COHEN: Yep, in a searchable spreadsheet that includes their race. It asks for email address, phone number, race, law school GPA, and it asks for it in a searchable PDF. The first thing I’ll name, if you’re listening to this and can’t see me and haven’t seen me, I’m a white woman.

My mind didn’t jump here immediately, but several of my friends who are not white, their minds immediately go to being doxxed, and that the Trump administration is going to post their information on the internet, especially people who, maybe, their grades were a little bit lower than white peers that they got hired over, and it’s going to be alleged that that’s why, as opposed to the fact that these firms interview for fit and not just off GPA and numbers. That’s immediately where their minds went.

Once they pointed it out to me, I realized that, of course, I thought that they were right. That was very on brand for the Trump administration to do. I also think it’s important to name that as these letters go out, former commissioners of the EEOC issue a letter, saying that they are unenforceable and likely illegally delivered, because they did not follow proper process within the EEOC. Everyone’s so busy that people don’t read this letter. I didn’t read that letter. People in the firm did not read that letter.

We’re emailing, asking for meetings with management. They’re providing them. We’re going into these meetings, and management is telling us that the demand letters are very complicated, that they’re not employment lawyers, they don’t know what the law is, they don’t know what the obligations are.

Paul Weiss makes a deal with the Trump administration

SAFIAN: This is at Skadden, that the top lawyers in the world, and they can’t figure out the legal situation. Fascinating.

COHEN: I can tell you too, it’s not just at Skadden. Bob, they are 10 pages long. It’s insane. We’re having these meetings. Paul Weiss has this executive order leveraged against it. We’re meeting not just on the EEOC demand letters, but pressuring, trying to get firms to collectively support Perkins. We’re sending these emails, we’re getting very unsatisfying responses. Then Paul Weiss announces that they have made a deal with the Trump administration to get him to withdraw his executive order against them, despite the fact that Perkins is fighting their executive order.

They’ve won this temporary restraining order. Just as an aside, on any other timeline with any other president, you wouldn’t issue an identical executive order over a temporary restraining order, and functionally enjoining another executive order that looks exactly the same way. It’s almost intentional to see what the system will bear.

SAFIAN: There’s an order, that order is deemed to be not legal, and then essentially, the same order is issued again to another firm.

COHEN: Yes. It’s like he puts on those fake glasses with the nose and mustache, and sends the exact same guy back in who’s just been kicked out of the bar. Paul Weiss enters this deal.

SAFIAN: What did Paul Weiss agree to, just so everyone is caught up?

The ‘resignation’ of Rachel Cohen

COHEN: Among other things, they agreed to provide $40 million and pro bono legal services to the Trump administration.

SAFIAN: To the Trump administration directly?

COHEN: Yes, or to Trump administration interests. Is Paul Weiss about to show up, arguing why Mahmoud Khalil should be in indefinite ICE detention because he attended a protest a year and a half ago? It was very, very scary to me, especially as someone that has a robust pro bono practice. Then the second thing that they did that stood out to me was that they agreed to have an independent investigator to be mutually agreed with the Trump administration, come into evaluate not just their hiring practices on a go-forward basis, but also their promotion and retention practices.

It gave such immediate support to the fears that my non-white friends had felt about what was going to happen to them and their data if these firms complied with the Trump administration. All of these associates just found out via New York Times news alert that their firm has committed them to doing these things. When Jeremy London, the executive partner of Skadden made this deal, he sent a firm-wide email about how they had been engaged in illegal DEI practices prior.

To be an attorney and receive that at all, insane, but to be a Black attorney at Skadden, and receive that email when I think our stats are still single digits on the percentage of Black associates in the law firm and in the industry broadly. I’m on the bus and I’m thinking, what’s the next proactive step? I went home and wrote this email. I outline, what are my asks for the firm? What should we be doing? It’s not just stomp your feet and say, “Do something.” It’s stomp your feet and say, “These are the things that we could do.”

Then I called my parents who were both JAG attorney and then stayed with the Air Force for their entire careers, and they are white people who live in Ohio who have a lot of faith in systems. I said, “I am not calling to ask if this action might get me fired. I’m calling to ask, does it feel unfair? Is there something else I should exhaust first?” I was careful to explain to people that I had really tried. I felt everything else possible to not torch a career.

Sent this email, was locked out of my internal email within three hours, and received a call the next morning that I texted and said, “I’m a very good attorney. Please put this in writing,” and received an email that said, “As you probably expected, we accept your resignation.” What ends up happening is I get removed from all of the systems, and a week later, exactly what I said would happen happens. Skadden announces via New York Times news alert.

None of my, I’m still friends with all of the people I was friends with at the firm before that, there was no previous conversation. They were asking for meetings, having meetings, attending meetings, talking to managing partners until literally 30 seconds before the New York Times news alert comes out, announcing that Skadden has promised $100 million in pro bono work to the Trump administration, despite the fact that not only do they not have an executive order entered against them, but my understanding is that the Trump admin didn’t even agree to withdraw their EEOC demand letter. It’s one of the worst deals, not to sound like Donald Trump, but it’s one of the worst deals of all time. It’s insane.

Why Rachel believes collective action is necessary

SAFIAN: These accommodations to the Trump administration, whether from law firms, whether from, look at Columbia University, some people start saying, “Oh, they didn’t give up that much. It’s mostly sort of posturing and optics, and why pick a fight if you don’t have to?”

COHEN: Yeah, I think a lot of people think that it’s 2016 and are so convinced of their own intellectual superiority that they are ignoring that the Trump administration is outplaying them. There’s a real problem with people being convinced that we are once again in a situation where you have a disorganized president who is blustery, who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

It’s a real indictment of judgment to be able to say, “Donald Trump is stupid, so it doesn’t matter. We’re going to just beat him.” I had people say to me in meetings, “Well, this will all work itself out in three years, because people are going to be coming out of the Trump administration trying to get jobs, and nobody will hire them because we’re all mad.”

We are fundamentally misaligned on what we think is going to come in the next three years if we fold on this now, because I do not think that there is an end to the Trump administration if we do not hold the line and act collectively.

SAFIAN: Rachel’s poise is matched by her anger about the way her firm’s leaders responded to pressure from the government. Are there practical implications of law firms appeasing a presidential administration, and what sort of precedent is it set for other businesses? We’ll talk about that after the break. Stay with us.

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Before the break, Rachel Cohen shared details of her failed attempt to get law firm, Skadden Arps, to stand up to the Trump administration. Now, we discuss whether there’s a legal basis for businesses and law firms to serve as part of the checks and balances in the Democratic system — plus what it takes to spur collective action among wealthy, powerful people. Let’s dive back in.

The moral obligations of law firms

I’ve been asking the CEOs on the show and other CEOs the extent to which business, and I guess law firms as part of that, are part of the checks and balances in the American political system overall. It feels that way to me that it should be, but is there any legal basis for thinking that business, that law firms are part of the checks and balances?

COHEN: I think business, less so. I think that perhaps, I certainly would argue that there’s a moral obligation when business leaders want to be listened to, and respected, and dismantle guardrails on American capitalism so that they can achieve certain profits, that then there becomes a moral obligation for you to continue to speak on those things even when it’s hard, but I don’t think there’s a legal one, and I think that’s just the nature of capitalism.

I do think with law firms, it’s different, because you swear your oaths. Most of us swear an oath to the Constitution. If you work in this industry, and especially if you’ve made millions and millions of dollars off of it, and your industry is crucial for the functioning of American democracy, and you also swore an oath to the law and the concept of this American experiment broadly, then yes, I think there’s an obligation for you to ensure that the law continues to exist.

Is Paul Weiss and Skadden making a business decision?

SAFIAN: The decisions to make these accommodations to the Trump administration by Skadden, by Paul Weiss, by other law firms, they’re doing that not necessarily for legal reasons, but for business reasons, right? Otherwise, it’s going to cost them money. Isn’t it ultimately, I don’t know, ultimately a business argument to say, “Oh, we want to keep doing that work for the government, or we don’t want to be blacklisted in some way?”

COHEN: I think number one, it’s a bad business decision in the long term, and I’ll come back to that in a second. I’m going to read you the profits per equity partner at Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps.

SAFIAN: This is the average, what the average partner earns in profits on an annual basis.

COHEN: 2023 profits per equity partner at Paul Weiss, $6,574,000. Skadden Arps: $5,403,000 annually. I just want to make sure that when we’re talking about what profits are being lost, and also the people who, again, swore an oath to the Constitution who are working in this industry, who need it to exist, who are clearing $5 million a year, but I think that the long-term business strategy of capitulating to someone with authoritarian and oligarchal tendencies, we’ve seen the way that Elon Musk operates and how he turns on people on a dime.

Skadden represented Elon Musk in his Twitter acquisition, and that man has no loyalty. Donald Trump and Elon Musk don’t have loyalty to each other. To hedge your bets on being in good favor with someone who does not respect people, it’s much less about policy aims of the Trump admin, and that I certainly would not be quitting my job. I didn’t quit when he got elected. That’s a political thing. I don’t expect the firm to speak on political issues, though they have in the past, but I certainly don’t expect that from a business.

That’s not what this is. It’s not about politics. It’s about existential infringement on American values, and the existence of a Constitutional Republic in this country.

The path forward for change

SAFIAN: What’s next for you and what’s your goal? In some ways you’ve become a bit of a pied piper. I know you created a toolkit for lawyers who want to protest internally. What’s your goal in all this?

COHEN: I don’t have a next career move. With the nature of my educational credentials, my financial situation, having worked at Skadden for several years, all of these things, I already felt that I had an obligation to try to prevent the bad thing that I see coming.

SAFIAN: For some of those folks who are listening to this who may be like, “It’s a little bit too extreme. Is it really that bad?” Maybe there’s some other impact that could be had between here and there about what an alternate view of America’s future looks like?

COHEN: Oh, that’s the path that I’m on. That’s the path that we go down if people collectively act now and intervene. That’s the path that we’re on, is some bad things will happen. We’re already seeing them happen. There’s people with legal status being deported to Salvadorian prisons because of clerical errors, because they’re deporting people over judge’s orders.

I think that there’s absolutely a path to not just interrupt these harms, but to channel the kind of response and reaction right now to make a much better version of this country. I think no matter what, things get darker before that happens, but I think at the end of the day, I’m coming on and saying, “These bad things could happen,” but I’m acting in a way where I’m very confident they don’t have to.

SAFIAN: The fear of retaliation is so strong right now, and where is the bravery going to come from? I guess if you’re already making five or $6 million a year and you’re not brave enough to push back, but I don’t know. Jeff Bezos is a billionaire, and he’s not pushing back. Where is that bravery going to come from?

COHEN: It’s going to come from people of color. It’s going to come from people that understand theory, and allyship, and are plugged into their communities and care about them deeply. Hopefully, we also get some people that have a little bit more agency, but if we don’t, that’s all that’s ever worked anyway.

SAFIAN: Well, and it’ll come from people like you, who have decided that this is something that is powerful enough for you to build your life around. Thank you for coming on to talk to me and to our listeners about this.

COHEN: Thanks so much, Bob.

SAFIAN: Rachel obviously isn’t a fan of Donald Trump, but you don’t need to share her personal views to wonder whether the biggest white shoe law firms are being brave in the face of a government challenge. Would they advise a client in a similar position to just give in? Listening to Rachel, I’m reminded of something Merck’s former CEO, Ken Frazier, said to me: It’s not a principle unless you’re willing to lose something over it. If you’re not willing to lose anything, then it’s just a preference.

What are your principles? What do you stand for? What are you prepared to defend even at a cost? These are questions that business leaders should always be asking themselves, but in today’s environment, it’s particularly critical. I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.