Goodwin Procter Taps Proskauer to Answer Federal Diversity Probe

Goodwin Procter has turned to Proskauer to craft its response to federal and state queries into diversity hiring.

Proskauer partner Allan Bloom responded to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a dozen state attorneys generals seeking information on Goodwin’s diversity efforts, according to an April 15 letter obtained Monday by Bloomberg Law through a public records request. Bloom is co-chair of the firm’s labor and employment group.

The records released by the office South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson do not include Bloom’s full response to the EEOC. Bloom requested that the response be kept confidential.

Bloom and Goodwin Procter didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Bloomberg Law first reported April 10 that Bloom and Washington attorney David Fortney have been advising some law firms on the EEOC matter.

The EEOC in March 17 letters to 20 law firms requested hiring and contact data for all law students and attorneys that applied for jobs since 2019. It also asked for names, genders, races and GPA information of applicants. The firms had until April 15 to respond.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and a coalition of Republican state attorneys general on April 3 urged the 20 firms to comply with the EEOC request and to send them the same information. Bloomberg Law requested records from South Carolina because Wilson was among the coalition of attorneys general who wrote the law firms.

The letters followed a March 6 executive order in which Trump ordered the EEOC to look at “large, influential, or industry leading” law firms and their “compliance with race-based and sex-based non-discrimination laws.”

Hogan Lovells hired boutique law firm Continental to represent the firm in the EEOC matter. Reed Smith tapped a team of lawyers at Fortney Scott.

Quinn Emanuel co-managing partner Bill Burck responded to the EEOC probes on behalf of six firms that struck deals with the White House—Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher, A&O Shearman, Skadden, and Milbank.

Burck’s letter confirmed that the EEOC withdrew its requests for diversity information from the six firms after they made an agreement with Trump for free legal services as a way to avoid punitive executive orders.