Paul Weiss Associates, It’s Time to Reflect on Why You’re Lawyers

Now would be a good time to try to remember why you went to law school in the first place.

Perhaps your goal was always to work for a premier corporate law firm. In that case, things are going well—Paul Weiss is one of the nation’s great firms. You have a chance to represent some of the bluest blue-chip corporations, to work on deals of astounding financial importance, and to bask in the well-deserved prestige of your office. The hours may be long—OK, very long—but the pay is lavish.

If that was the only reason you went to law school, you can stop reading this letter and get back to running up those billable hours.

But maybe you were hoping that by going to law school, you would have a chance to work for a conservative president, at the Department of Justice, getting the opportunity to use the power of the federal government to reduce regulation and eliminate the deep state. If you graduated from law school when there was a Democrat in the White House, that timing was inopportune.

Things were looking up when President Donald Trump was reelected. But then the March 14 executive order about Paul Weiss seemed to doom your career ambitions.

If so, the firm’s leaders have saved the day by making a deal with the administration that would rescind the order in exchange for legal services to help advance the administration’s goals—which included allowing an audit of the firm’s diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.

You could be among the many associates assigned to do legal work in support of the Trump administration. Perhaps you can do something on behalf of veterans (though you likely won’t be helping reinstate the more than 1,000 laid-off employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs). Or you might have an opportunity to write a brief in support of the deportation of people with whose views you (and quite possibly I) strongly disagree. You’re in the right place at the right time.

Of course, there’s a third possibility. You might have gone to law school because you believed in the rule of law and were confident that it applied to everyone, from immigrants to the US president. You might have thought that you could use your legal training to help those less fortunate than yourself.

You may also have hoped that if a day ever came when government power was being gravely abused, you would be able to defend—and have the courage to represent—the victims of that governmental misconduct. At least you were sure that you wouldn’t work for a firm which, if push came to shove, would put profit ahead of principle.

If that is why you went to law school, you may be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Push indeed came to shove, and Paul Weiss decided not to stand up, alongside Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling, to reprisals from Trump. The regime Paul Weiss is now attempting to placate will demand more tribute, obeisance, and self-censorship.

So although other law firms will represent individuals or organizations whose rights are being violated by the Trump administration, Paul Weiss may decide it has a conflict of interest that prevents it from suing the federal government. If you tell your supervisors you want to volunteer some pro bono time for an organization, such as State Democracy Defenders, which is challenging actions by the Trump administration, they may suggest that you find some other good cause.

Paul Weiss itself is unlikely to file a brief in support of Perkins Coie. If you believe, as I do, the rule of law and the foundations of the Constitution are under assault at this unique time in US history, you may have to quietly stand by as long as you are at Paul Weiss.

There will come a day when you are at a law school reunion, talking with your former classmates about what each of you did with your careers and your lives. Some will boast about how they ascended to partnerships at prominent firms, describing their lovely co-ops or houses, and their vacations on Nantucket. Most of your classmates will at least be able to say they didn’t work at a firm that acquiesced to threats and retribution by the Trump administration, smoothing the path to retaliation against others.

There might be a few former classmates who will tell a far different story—of the federal worker whose job they saved, of the agency or program whose dismantlement they helped prevent, of the hospital still open—because of the manner in which they used their legal education.

Now would be a good time to decide who you want to be at that reunion.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Author Information

Eric Schnapper, a professor at the University of Washington School of Law, previously worked for 25 years as an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc.

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