{"id":118885,"date":"2025-05-13T10:02:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T18:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/13\/biglaw-doesnt-give-a-damn-about-its-young-lawyers\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T10:02:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T18:02:26","slug":"biglaw-doesnt-give-a-damn-about-its-young-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/13\/biglaw-doesnt-give-a-damn-about-its-young-lawyers\/","title":{"rendered":"Biglaw Doesn\u2019t Give A Damn About Its Young Lawyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed. note<\/u>: Please welcome Vivia Chen back to the pages of Above the Law. Subscribe to her Substack, \u201cThe Ex-Careerist,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

WHAT A STRANGE, SAD TIME TO BE A YOUNG LAWYER IN BIGLAW. This is a generation that was raised to value diversity, speak up for injustice, and be \u201cauthentic.\u201d Biglaw echoed these values \u2014 or, at least, pretended to \u2014 as they competed to recruit talent from the nation\u2019s best law schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wined and dined us, then dumped us, and sided for Donald Trump,\u201d sums up one Biglaw associate.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m used to hearing gripes from associates about how miserable they are \u2014 the long hours, high pressure, and intense competition. But this time, it\u2019s different. It\u2019s not just the hypocrisy, but the clear message that principles are expendable, that talent is expendable.<\/p>\n

Young lawyers feel gutted and betrayed<\/strong>. As major law firms either cave to Donald Trump\u2019s demands by making deals with the administration or cower in silence, the gap between law firm leaders and the young lawyers who work for them has never been more stark. In speaking with over a dozen young lawyers, I was struck by the mental toll that all this is taking, and how lawyers of color and those in the LBGTQ community feel especially isolated.<\/p>\n

To be clear, it\u2019s not just the young who are watching in horror as venerated legal institutions eagerly sell out to Trump in the name of survival. Some senior lawyers have also left firms that made deals with Trump. One prominent departure is Paul Weiss partner\u00a0Jeh Johnson<\/a>, a high-profile Black lawyer, who\u2019s decamping for Columbia University. And, just a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft is\u00a0losing lawyers because of its Trump deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s something particularly sad about the plight of young lawyers \u2014 the way Biglaw dismisses their heartfelt concerns about the integrity of the profession, leaving them little sense of ownership in the institutions they work for. At A&O Shearman, for example, over 500 associates and staff signed an open letter pleading with the firm not to enter a deal with Trump. The upshot: the firm went ahead with the deal anyway, gifting the Trump administration $125 million in free legal services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe signed up for a noble profession that\u2019s focused on justice and the rule of law, and now we\u2019re helping to avoid it?\u201d asks an associate at a Silicon Valley firm that\u2019s been quiet on Trump\u2019s attacks. \u201cI feel partners aren\u2019t going to bat for us. It feels like the partners versus the associates.\u201d<\/p>\n

An associate of color at a New York firm puts it more bluntly: \u201cIt\u2019s clear that they don\u2019t give a shit about us,\u201d noting that the firm has made zero effort to engage associates on the issue.<\/p>\n

Some associates say the culture of repression and fear is becoming unbearable. \u201cIt\u2019s bizarre,\u201d a midlevel associate at a Washington, D.C.-based firm tells me. \u201cNo one\u2019s allowed to talk about the one thing that\u2019s on everyone\u2019s mind. We\u2019re all supposed to pretend nothing\u2019s happening. It feels like my emotions are going to explode.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mental health has long been a problem<\/strong>\u00a0in Biglaw, even before these developments. An American Bar Association survey in 2023 found that\u00a017% of Biglaw lawyers and employees feel \u201cemotionally depleted,<\/a>\u201d with 53% of respondents reporting low leadership support.<\/p>\n

Biglaw made a big to-do about mental wellness a few years ago but what about now? \u201cI remember during Covid when partners would call to see if you\u2019re okay,\u201d says an associate at a California-based firm. \u201cBut after being in a situation where you felt supported, there\u2019s now no acknowledgment at all of what we\u2019re all going through. It\u2019s alienating, like, are we in the same reality? Why am I killing myself if I\u2019m working in an authoritarian regime?\u201d This associate adds, \u201cwe need mental health support because it\u2019s very stressful, and what\u2019s making it worse is that people don\u2019t feel empowered to raise the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

For minority lawyers, the sense of betrayal is particularly sharp.<\/strong>\u00a0After years of promoting DEI as a core value, many of these same firms are now trashing those efforts and quietly scrubbing all mention of DEI and social justice on their websites, as if they were episodes of shame. The message? Inclusion is conditional \u2014 expendable when power shifts. For lawyers of color and other marginalized groups, it\u2019s devastating. It tells them they were never truly part of the firm\u2019s vision for the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been asking people if we\u2019re going to do the DLA thing and eliminate affinity groups and pronouns,\u201d says a Hispanic LBGTQ associate. \u201cPartners don\u2019t understand what we have to lose when we don\u2019t have a support network or have the right to our identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

One reason underrepresented lawyers feel so vulnerable is that they feel personally attacked by Trump\u2019s directives. \u201cDEI is something I value,\u201d says a White & Case associate of color, who picked the firm because of its commitment to diversity. \u201cIt\u2019s not just my job but who I am.\u201d Though this associate has been active in recruiting law students to the firm, s\/he has second thoughts: \u201cNow, I wonder, who are you? Now, when I talk to students, I feel like I\u2019m playing people.\u201d (White & Case has eliminated its DEI efforts<\/a>\u00a0in the U.S. and internationally.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a given that lawyers of color will feel this added burden \u201cbecause at the end of the day, it\u2019s harder for us to break through,\u201d says Ru Bhatt, a recruiter at Major Lindsey & Africa. \u201cWe can\u2019t hide who we are. We\u2019re rocking the boat just by existing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as much as lawyers of color feel directly under attack, some are extremely reluctant to speak out in this political environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a first-gen American, a first-gen college grad and law school grad, and I am the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants,\u201d says an associate at a Washington, D.C. firm. \u201cI grew up dirt poor. The fact that I even work at one of these firms is a miracle. I think there are plenty of white-identifying lawyers who work at these firms who don\u2019t have as much to lose as I do, and whose parents\u2019 legal status in this country isn\u2019t threatened.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this lawyer and others in a similar position,\u00a0former Skadden Arps associate Rachel Cohen<\/a>\u00a0who publicly pushed the firm to stand up to Trump, has become an icon of defiance and a powerful surrogate. (Cohen eventually left Skadden Arps, which later signed a deal with the administration that promised $100 million in free legal services for Trump\u2019s pet projects.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI admire Rachel\u2019s activism because she recognizes her privilege as a white woman and understands that it\u2019s unfair for advocacy to fall upon those of us who are most marginalized,\u201d says the Salvadoran American associate who feels deeply conflicted about staying silent.<\/p>\n

Cohen, who recently joined litigator Abbe Lowell\u2019s firm that\u2019s representing individuals under investigation by the Trump administration, tells me, \u201cI 100% think it\u2019s hitting lawyers of color harder and that the firms are treating them repugnantly.\u201d (Joining Cohen at the Lowell firm is lawyer\u00a0Brenna Trout Frey<\/a>, who also quit Skadden in protest.)<\/p>\n

So where does this all leave young lawyers?<\/strong>\u00a0As with everything Trump has touched, it\u2019s created fissures that didn\u2019t exist just a year ago. There are now \u201cTrump firms\u201d (the nine firms that have formally signed agreements with Trump, plus those that are Trump-aligned \u2014 e.g.,\u00a0Sullivan & Cromwell<\/a>\u00a0and Jones Day), anti-Trump firms (Perkins Coie, Covington & Burling, Williams & Connelly, Susman & Godfrey, and Jenner & Block, among others), and the vast majority that are trying desperately to stay under the radar (though some, like Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Davis Polk are\u00a0now refusing certain pro bono work<\/a>\u00a0to avoid Trump\u2019s wrath).<\/p>\n

That also means that young lawyers who identify with one political camp or another will gravitate to certain firms. And, of course, there are those who don\u2019t give a hoot about the issue at all and are happy to go with the highest bidder \u2014 and perhaps that\u2019s the type that best aligns with Biglaw\u2019s true priority: making money.<\/p>\n

In the short run, though, firms that have bowed to Trump might not do so well in recruiting the best and the brightest. \u201cI think younger lawyers are now galvanized to join firms like Perkins that have stood up to Trump,\u201d says an Asian American associate at one of the firms that signed a deal with Trump. \u201cIt\u2019s a \u2018fuck you\u2019 to those [capitulating] firms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subscribe to read more at The Ex-Careerist\u2026.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Vivia Chen\u00a0writes\u00a0\u201cThe Ex-Careerist\u201d<\/a>\u00a0column on Substack where she unleashes her unvarnished views about the intersection of work, life, and politics. A former lawyer, she was an opinion columnist at Bloomberg Law and The American Lawyer. Subscribe to her Substack by clicking here:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

The post Biglaw Doesn\u2019t Give A Damn About Its Young Lawyers<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Ed. note<\/u>: Please welcome Vivia Chen back to the pages of Above the Law. Subscribe to her Substack, \u201cThe Ex-Careerist,\u201dhere<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

WHAT A STRANGE, SAD TIME TO BE A YOUNG LAWYER IN BIGLAW. This is a generation that was raised to value diversity, speak up for injustice, and be \u201cauthentic.\u201d Biglaw echoed these values \u2014 or, at least, pretended to \u2014 as they competed to recruit talent from the nation\u2019s best law schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wined and dined us, then dumped us, and sided for Donald Trump,\u201d sums up one Biglaw associate.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m used to hearing gripes from associates about how miserable they are \u2014 the long hours, high pressure, and intense competition. But this time, it\u2019s different. It\u2019s not just the hypocrisy, but the clear message that principles are expendable, that talent is expendable.<\/p>\n

Young lawyers feel gutted and betrayed<\/strong>. As major law firms either cave to Donald Trump\u2019s demands by making deals with the administration or cower in silence, the gap between law firm leaders and the young lawyers who work for them has never been more stark. In speaking with over a dozen young lawyers, I was struck by the mental toll that all this is taking, and how lawyers of color and those in the LBGTQ community feel especially isolated.<\/p>\n

To be clear, it\u2019s not just the young who are watching in horror as venerated legal institutions eagerly sell out to Trump in the name of survival. Some senior lawyers have also left firms that made deals with Trump. One prominent departure is Paul Weiss partner\u00a0Jeh Johnson<\/a>, a high-profile Black lawyer, who\u2019s decamping for Columbia University. And, just a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft is\u00a0losing lawyers because of its Trump deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s something particularly sad about the plight of young lawyers \u2014 the way Biglaw dismisses their heartfelt concerns about the integrity of the profession, leaving them little sense of ownership in the institutions they work for. At A&O Shearman, for example, over 500 associates and staff signed an open letter pleading with the firm not to enter a deal with Trump. The upshot: the firm went ahead with the deal anyway, gifting the Trump administration $125 million in free legal services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe signed up for a noble profession that\u2019s focused on justice and the rule of law, and now we\u2019re helping to avoid it?\u201d asks an associate at a Silicon Valley firm that\u2019s been quiet on Trump\u2019s attacks. \u201cI feel partners aren\u2019t going to bat for us. It feels like the partners versus the associates.\u201d<\/p>\n

An associate of color at a New York firm puts it more bluntly: \u201cIt\u2019s clear that they don\u2019t give a shit about us,\u201d noting that the firm has made zero effort to engage associates on the issue.<\/p>\n

Some associates say the culture of repression and fear is becoming unbearable. \u201cIt\u2019s bizarre,\u201d a midlevel associate at a Washington, D.C.-based firm tells me. \u201cNo one\u2019s allowed to talk about the one thing that\u2019s on everyone\u2019s mind. We\u2019re all supposed to pretend nothing\u2019s happening. It feels like my emotions are going to explode.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mental health has long been a problem<\/strong>\u00a0in Biglaw, even before these developments. An American Bar Association survey in 2023 found that\u00a017% of Biglaw lawyers and employees feel \u201cemotionally depleted,<\/a>\u201d with 53% of respondents reporting low leadership support.<\/p>\n

Biglaw made a big to-do about mental wellness a few years ago but what about now? \u201cI remember during Covid when partners would call to see if you\u2019re okay,\u201d says an associate at a California-based firm. \u201cBut after being in a situation where you felt supported, there\u2019s now no acknowledgment at all of what we\u2019re all going through. It\u2019s alienating, like, are we in the same reality? Why am I killing myself if I\u2019m working in an authoritarian regime?\u201d This associate adds, \u201cwe need mental health support because it\u2019s very stressful, and what\u2019s making it worse is that people don\u2019t feel empowered to raise the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

For minority lawyers, the sense of betrayal is particularly sharp.<\/strong>\u00a0After years of promoting DEI as a core value, many of these same firms are now trashing those efforts and quietly scrubbing all mention of DEI and social justice on their websites, as if they were episodes of shame. The message? Inclusion is conditional \u2014 expendable when power shifts. For lawyers of color and other marginalized groups, it\u2019s devastating. It tells them they were never truly part of the firm\u2019s vision for the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been asking people if we\u2019re going to do the DLA thing and eliminate affinity groups and pronouns,\u201d says a Hispanic LBGTQ associate. \u201cPartners don\u2019t understand what we have to lose when we don\u2019t have a support network or have the right to our identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

One reason underrepresented lawyers feel so vulnerable is that they feel personally attacked by Trump\u2019s directives. \u201cDEI is something I value,\u201d says a White & Case associate of color, who picked the firm because of its commitment to diversity. \u201cIt\u2019s not just my job but who I am.\u201d Though this associate has been active in recruiting law students to the firm, s\/he has second thoughts: \u201cNow, I wonder, who are you? Now, when I talk to students, I feel like I\u2019m playing people.\u201d (White & Case has eliminated its DEI efforts<\/a>\u00a0in the U.S. and internationally.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a given that lawyers of color will feel this added burden \u201cbecause at the end of the day, it\u2019s harder for us to break through,\u201d says Ru Bhatt, a recruiter at Major Lindsey & Africa. \u201cWe can\u2019t hide who we are. We\u2019re rocking the boat just by existing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as much as lawyers of color feel directly under attack, some are extremely reluctant to speak out in this political environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a first-gen American, a first-gen college grad and law school grad, and I am the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants,\u201d says an associate at a Washington, D.C. firm. \u201cI grew up dirt poor. The fact that I even work at one of these firms is a miracle. I think there are plenty of white-identifying lawyers who work at these firms who don\u2019t have as much to lose as I do, and whose parents\u2019 legal status in this country isn\u2019t threatened.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this lawyer and others in a similar position,\u00a0former Skadden Arps associate Rachel Cohen<\/a>\u00a0who publicly pushed the firm to stand up to Trump, has become an icon of defiance and a powerful surrogate. (Cohen eventually left Skadden Arps, which later signed a deal with the administration that promised $100 million in free legal services for Trump\u2019s pet projects.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI admire Rachel\u2019s activism because she recognizes her privilege as a white woman and understands that it\u2019s unfair for advocacy to fall upon those of us who are most marginalized,\u201d says the Salvadoran American associate who feels deeply conflicted about staying silent.<\/p>\n

Cohen, who recently joined litigator Abbe Lowell\u2019s firm that\u2019s representing individuals under investigation by the Trump administration, tells me, \u201cI 100% think it\u2019s hitting lawyers of color harder and that the firms are treating them repugnantly.\u201d (Joining Cohen at the Lowell firm is lawyer\u00a0Brenna Trout Frey<\/a>, who also quit Skadden in protest.)<\/p>\n

So where does this all leave young lawyers?<\/strong>\u00a0As with everything Trump has touched, it\u2019s created fissures that didn\u2019t exist just a year ago. There are now \u201cTrump firms\u201d (the nine firms that have formally signed agreements with Trump, plus those that are Trump-aligned \u2014 e.g.,\u00a0Sullivan & Cromwell<\/a>\u00a0and Jones Day), anti-Trump firms (Perkins Coie, Covington & Burling, Williams & Connelly, Susman & Godfrey, and Jenner & Block, among others), and the vast majority that are trying desperately to stay under the radar (though some, like Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Davis Polk are\u00a0now refusing certain pro bono work<\/a>\u00a0to avoid Trump\u2019s wrath).<\/p>\n

That also means that young lawyers who identify with one political camp or another will gravitate to certain firms. And, of course, there are those who don\u2019t give a hoot about the issue at all and are happy to go with the highest bidder \u2014 and perhaps that\u2019s the type that best aligns with Biglaw\u2019s true priority: making money.<\/p>\n

In the short run, though, firms that have bowed to Trump might not do so well in recruiting the best and the brightest. \u201cI think younger lawyers are now galvanized to join firms like Perkins that have stood up to Trump,\u201d says an Asian American associate at one of the firms that signed a deal with Trump. \u201cIt\u2019s a \u2018fuck you\u2019 to those [capitulating] firms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subscribe to read more at The Ex-Careerist\u2026.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Vivia Chen\u00a0writes\u00a0\u201cThe Ex-Careerist\u201d<\/a>\u00a0column on Substack where she unleashes her unvarnished views about the intersection of work, life, and politics. A former lawyer, she was an opinion columnist at Bloomberg Law and The American Lawyer. Subscribe to her Substack by clicking here:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed. note: Please welcome Vivia Chen back to the pages of Above the Law. Subscribe to her Substack, \u201cThe Ex-Careerist,\u201d\u00a0here. WHAT A STRANGE, SAD TIME TO BE A YOUNG LAWYER IN BIGLAW. This is a generation that was raised to value diversity, speak up for injustice, and be \u201cauthentic.\u201d Biglaw echoed these values \u2014 or, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":118855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Vivia-Chen-Ex-Careerist-QfLXId.webp?fit=286%2C72&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}