Goodwin Procter Cuts Recruiter Contract After EEOC Criticism (1)

Goodwin Procter terminated a contract with a recruiting operation following its founder’s critical comments about the law firm’s response to a federal diversity probe.

“This letter serves as written notice of termination,” Heidi Goldstein Shepherd, Goodwin’s chief talent officer, said in an email to Mosaic Search Partners on May 23. The email came the day after Mosaic founder Bryson Malcolm posted on LinkedIn that Goodwin had made a “shameful” response to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission probe.

“This is shameful,” Malcolm wrote May 22. “Goodwin Procter leadership, you should be ashamed. There’s no other way for me to say it.”

The termination email, viewed Thursday by Bloomberg Law, shows the risk that law firm vendors face when they take actions such as speaking in public to criticize their customers. Bloomberg Law reported May 22 that Goodwin, in response to an EEOC inquiry, said it had axed relationships with major diversity, equity, and inclusion nonprofit organizations.

That same day, when Malcolm posted his comments on LinkedIn, he also emailed at least one Goodwin associate saying the firm’s EEOC response “is not normal” and inviting the person to “feel free to reach out if you ever want to chat,” according to an email obtained by Bloomberg Law.

Malcolm’s emails played a significant role in the firm’s decision to terminate the contract, according to a person familiar with the matter. Goodwin declined to comment.

Malcolm said in an interview that the email was not meant as a recruiting push and did not violate his contract with the firm. “It’s an excuse and a bad one,” he said of the person’s comment that the emails played a role in the termination.

EEOC Letters

The EEOC, as directed by President Donald Trump, wrote to 20 law firms on March 17 asking them to hand over information on their diversity initiatives and hiring decisions going back 10 years. The EEOC said it was investigating the firms for possible discrimination in their diversity programs.

The Trump administration has called DEI radical and illegal and has made eradicating it a top priority. “No one is above the law—and certainly not the private bar,” Acting EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said in a statement at the time.

Goodwin in response told the EEOC that it terminated its relationships with the Sponsors for Educational Opportunities legal fellowship, which connects incoming law students with paid fellowships at prestigious law firms. The firm also suspended its relationships with Leadership Council for Legal Diversity and will no longer participate in Mansfield certification.

The EEOC also requested specific, identifiable data of past fellowship recipients and those promoted to partner, including names, phone numbers, race and gender. The firm declined to hand over identifiable data but did share anonymously fellowship recipients’ race, gender, school, grade point average and location of the office where they worked, according to letters obtained by Bloomberg Law.

Goodwin’s termination letter didn’t cite a specific reason for ending the agreement the law firm said it had begun with Mosaic on Dec. 13, 2023. Malcolm said on LinkedIn on Thursday that he believes the termination was “in response to my voicing my displeasure with the firm last week when they turned their backs on the entire diverse community of big law” with its response to the EEOC.

He cited law firms such as Susman Godfrey and WilmerHale that took the Trump administration to court in response to executive orders targeting the firms. “Like many of those amazing law firms, I, too, am willing to risk losing a client when it means standing up for issues of the utmost moral and ethical importance,” he said.