Perkins Coie Spurns Trump Diversity Probe Request Citing Lawsuit

Perkins Coie won’t share details on hiring and diversity until it finishes a lawsuit against the Trump administration, as the law firm broke with rivals that struck deals to end federal employment inquiries.

“We believe it prudent to wait until the resolution of that litigation before providing any further response and would be amenable to having a call with you following the court’s ruling,” Perkins Coie outside counsel Dane Butswinkas of Williams & Connolly said in an April 15 letter to Acting Chair Andrea Lucas of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The requests “fall outside of the investigative authority” of the EEOC and are “overbroad, vague and unduly burdensome,” the firm’s letter said. Perkins Coie also raised concerns the information would “impermissibly invade” attorney-client relationships.

Under orders from President Donald Trump, the EEOC on March 17 sought details from 20 law firms on diversity hiring practices. A coalition of Republican-led state attorneys general, including Texas’ Ken Paxton (R), about two weeks later asked the same firms to send them documentation about diversity efforts.

Bloomberg Law obtained the firms’ responses to Paxton on Thursday through a Texas public records request. Perkins Coie, one of the 20 firms to receive the EEOC letter, is suing the Trump administration over a March 6 executive order.

The order instructs agency officials to refrain from hiring employees of the firm and to place limitations on its employees entering federal government buildings. It also directs agencies to review any contracts with the law firm—and with entities that do business with it—for possible termination.

Quinn Emanuel co-managing partner Bill Burck answered Paxton on behalf of six firms that struck deals with the White House to end the EEOC probes—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.

“No documents or information have been produced,” Burck wrote.

Burck has emerged as a go-between for firms facing retribution from Trump. He and Gibson Dunn lawyer Jason Schwartz are advising several firms hit with EEOC inquiries. Allan Bloom, the co-chair of Proskauer’s labor and employment group, and Washington attorney David Fortney are also advising some of the firms.

The Trump Organization fired Burck on Thursday, hours after the president attacked him in a social media post for helping Harvard University take on Trump. Earlier this week, the school sued the administration for freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding.

The EEOC’s March 17 letters to the 20 firms requested contact information for “all law students or attorneys who applied to be hired” since 2019. It also asked for the names, genders, and races of job applicants, as well as law school and GPA data. The letters also requested information on clients’ diversity initiatives, which firms refused to divulge.

The 20 firms’ hiring practices also caught the attention of GOP-led states that wanted to know if the legal operations were violating state laws against deceptive trade practices.

“Your firm should comply with EEOC’s letter requesting more information and send the same responsive information to the offices of the undersigned attorneys general,” the state attorneys general told the firms in an April 3 letter.

On April 15, the due date for the firms to comply, Bloomberg Law submitted a public records request to Paxton’s office for a copy of all responses.