{"id":166780,"date":"2026-11-04T16:52:05","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T00:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/11\/04\/sidley-attorney-fired-after-open-letter-to-biglaw-elected-to-congress\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T16:52:05","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T00:52:05","slug":"sidley-attorney-fired-after-open-letter-to-biglaw-elected-to-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/11\/04\/sidley-attorney-fired-after-open-letter-to-biglaw-elected-to-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Sidley Attorney Fired After Open Letter To Biglaw Elected To Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 2023, a number of Biglaw firms put out a letter blaming law schools for antisemitism<\/a>. The letter offered little in the way of a concrete response to the rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the country, but it did allow law firms to generate some headlines and heap the blame on someone else. <\/p>\n

Sidley attorney Melat Kiros drafted a lengthy piece<\/a> calling out the Biglaw letter for conflating antisemitism with foreign policy criticism, arguing that firms needed to do a better job delineating antisemitic harassment that is rightly denounced and critiquing a geopolitical conflict \u2014 the latter she described as the sort of core political speech that forms \u201cthe bedrock principle of a true democracy.\u201d Without this distinction, she argued, \u201cthe chilling effect is undeniable\u201d on attorneys worried about their jobs.<\/p>\n

So they fired her<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And now she\u2019s headed to Congress<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Democratic socialist Melat Kiros has won the race to represent Colorado\u2019s 1st Congressional District in the House, according to a race call by The Associated Press, marking the first time a Gen Z woman will serve in Congress.<\/p>\n

Kiros, a 29-year-old Ethiopian immigrant and lawyer, cruised to victory Tuesday night in the reliably blue district, which includes most of Denver.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Kiros knocked off a 15-term incumbent in the primary before winning the general by a little over 64 points. As for her age, she told NPR:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cYoung people understand that we are in the fight of our lives,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to have leaders that are going to be fighting for the kind of bold policies that actually get something done, and they\u2019re refusing to settle or wait for our turn or ask for permission.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Though, in a sense, she got permission when Sidley fired her rather than hear her out. Without that nudge, she may well be sitting in an office right now refreshing Above the Law<\/em> to see if Sidley matched the Milbank compensation scale yet.<\/p>\n

It has not, by the way.<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Attorney Warns Biglaw\u2019s Antisemitism Letter Makes Lawyers Worry About Getting Fired, Gets Fired<\/a>
Biglaw Firms Tell Law Schools To \u2018Pls Hndle Thx\u2019 Antisemitism<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Sidley Attorney Fired After Open Letter To Biglaw Elected To Congress<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Photo by AAron Ontiveroz\/The Denver Post)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back in 2023, a number of Biglaw firms put out a letter blaming law schools for antisemitism<\/a>. The letter offered little in the way of a concrete response to the rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the country, but it did allow law firms to generate some headlines and heap the blame on someone else. <\/p>\n

Sidley attorney Melat Kiros drafted a lengthy piece<\/a> calling out the Biglaw letter for conflating antisemitism with foreign policy criticism, arguing that firms needed to do a better job delineating antisemitic harassment that is rightly denounced and critiquing a geopolitical conflict \u2014 the latter she described as the sort of core political speech that forms \u201cthe bedrock principle of a true democracy.\u201d Without this distinction, she argued, \u201cthe chilling effect is undeniable\u201d on attorneys worried about their jobs.<\/p>\n

So they fired her<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And now she\u2019s headed to Congress<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Democratic socialist Melat Kiros has won the race to represent Colorado\u2019s 1st Congressional District in the House, according to a race call by The Associated Press, marking the first time a Gen Z woman will serve in Congress.<\/p>\n

Kiros, a 29-year-old Ethiopian immigrant and lawyer, cruised to victory Tuesday night in the reliably blue district, which includes most of Denver.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Kiros knocked off a 15-term incumbent in the primary before winning the general by a little over 64 points. As for her age, she told NPR:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cYoung people understand that we are in the fight of our lives,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to have leaders that are going to be fighting for the kind of bold policies that actually get something done, and they\u2019re refusing to settle or wait for our turn or ask for permission.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Though, in a sense, she got permission when Sidley fired her rather than hear her out. Without that nudge, she may well be sitting in an office right now refreshing Above the Law<\/em> to see if Sidley matched the Milbank compensation scale yet.<\/p>\n

It has not, by the way.<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Attorney Warns Biglaw\u2019s Antisemitism Letter Makes Lawyers Worry About Getting Fired, Gets Fired<\/a>
Biglaw Firms Tell Law Schools To \u2018Pls Hndle Thx\u2019 Antisemitism<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in 2023, a number of Biglaw firms put out a letter blaming law schools for antisemitism. The letter offered little in the way of a concrete response to the rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the country, but it did allow law firms to generate some headlines and heap the blame on someone else. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":166765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166780","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=166780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}