In a year where the legal profession faced unprecedented challenges from the United States government, where some firms bowed to unconstitutional threats and others bravely fought it out in court, it makes sense that a lawyer who defied the powers that be and stood up for the rule of law is taking home our Lawyer of the Year title.<\/p>\n
Rachel Cohen, the former Skadden associate who\u00a0publicly condemned Trump\u2019s threat to the rule of law<\/a>\u00a0before many others found the strength to join her, took the majority of the votes in our annual competition. Cohen found the courage and resolve to stand up and do what was right, regardless of the fact that she may have been standing alone in her quest to protect the legal profession from harm. Cohen\u2019s stand drew national attention, galvanizing associates across the industry as she continued advocating for legal ethics and accountability, and earned her recognition \u2014 including a\u00a0Civil Courage Award<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 for her willingness to sacrifice a lucrative career in defense of her principles.<\/p>\n We\u2019d like to over a very special congratulations to our 2025 Lawyer of the Year, Rachel Cohen. She offered a new hope for members of the legal profession to stand up for democracy and the rule of law, and she deserves a huge thank you from every attorney in America.<\/p>\n Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Former Biglaw Associate Who Refused To Capitulate To Trump Wins 2025 Lawyer Of The Year Honors<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n The competition for 2025 Lawyer of the Year honors was not a close one, not even one little bit.\u00a0In fact, our top candidate took home more than 80% of the vote. <\/p>\n Before we announce which of the two prevailed, let\u2019s review Above the Law\u2019s past Lawyers of the Year:<\/p>\n In a year where the legal profession faced unprecedented challenges from the United States government, where some firms bowed to unconstitutional threats and others bravely fought it out in court, it makes sense that a lawyer who defied the powers that be and stood up for the rule of law is taking home our Lawyer of the Year title.<\/p>\n Rachel Cohen, the former Skadden associate who\u00a0publicly condemned Trump\u2019s threat to the rule of law<\/a>\u00a0before many others found the strength to join her, took the majority of the votes in our annual competition. Cohen found the courage and resolve to stand up and do what was right, regardless of the fact that she may have been standing alone in her quest to protect the legal profession from harm. Cohen\u2019s stand drew national attention, galvanizing associates across the industry as she continued advocating for legal ethics and accountability, and earned her recognition \u2014 including a\u00a0Civil Courage Award<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 for her willingness to sacrifice a lucrative career in defense of her principles.<\/p>\n We\u2019d like to over a very special congratulations to our 2025 Lawyer of the Year, Rachel Cohen. She offered a new hope for members of the legal profession to stand up for democracy and the rule of law, and she deserves a huge thank you from every attorney in America.<\/p>\n Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The competition for 2025 Lawyer of the Year honors was not a close one, not even one little bit.\u00a0In fact, our top candidate took home more than 80% of the vote. Before we announce which of the two prevailed, let\u2019s review Above the Law\u2019s past Lawyers of the Year: 2007:\u00a0Loyola 2L 2008:\u00a0President Barack Obama 2009:\u00a0Justice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":141561,"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-141611","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\/2026\/01\/Staci-Zaretsky-nKM9ep.jpg?fit=150%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141611","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=141611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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