A Skadden associate quits — and calls out Big Law for bowing to Trump
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
- An associate at the Big Law firm Skadden has publicly resigned over her firm's inaction to Trump.
- Trump has targeted major law firms with executive orders, banning their access to government contracts.
- She asked Skadden to sign onto a brief supporting another firm that sued the Trump administration.
An associate from the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP has publicly handed in her resignation notice in response to her firm's actions amid Trump's targeting of Big Law.
On Thursday, Rachel Cohen posted screenshots on LinkedIn of the resignation email she said she sent to her entire firm.
She said the decision of Paul Weiss, another elite law firm, agreeing to drop DEI hiring practices and pledging $40 million in pro bono legal work toward initiatives endorsed by the Trump administration, gave her a new sense of urgency.
"Paul Weiss' decision to cave to the Trump administration on DEI, representation, and staffing has forced my hand," Cohen wrote. "We do not have time. It is now or it is never, and if it is never, I will not continue to work here."
In exchange for the commitments from Paul Weiss, President Donald Trump said he agreed to rescind an executive order issued on March 14 that had revoked the firm's security clearances and threatened its client's government contracts.
Similar executive orders still stand against the law firms Covington & Burling and Perkins Coie.
In each order, Trump accused the firms and specific attorneys of weaponizing the judicial process. Perkins Coie has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, calling the order an "unlawful" attack in a statement.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has also requested information about DEI practices from 20 law firms, including Cohen's firm, Skadden.
"The EEOC is prepared to root out discrimination anywhere it may rear its head, including in our nation's elite law firms," Andrea Lucas, the EEOC's Acting Chair, said.
Cohen said her resignation was conditional on Skadden coming up with a "satisfactory response to the current moment," including signing into a brief supporting Perkins Coie in its lawsuit, refusing to cooperate with the EEOC's request, and committing to diversity programs.
"The firm has been given time and opportunity to do the right thing. Thus far, we have not. This is a moment that demands urgency," she wrote.
In a follow-up comment on LinkedIn an hour after posting the letter, Cohen said she no longer had access to her Skadden work email.
"They owe me a payout for 24 accrued vacation days," she wrote. "Thank you and good night."
In a TikTok post early Friday morning, Cohen said everyone in Big Law realized that Trump was trying to get them to stop working with clients he didn't like. "No one disputes it. I would go to work and bring it up, and people would be like, 'Oh my god, right?' And yet almost no one in the industry has actually been fighting the Trump administration on this."
Cohen wrote in the resignation email that over the past weeks she had tried weeks to get the "firm and broader industry to admit that we are in the throes of early-stage authoritarianism and that we are uniquely positioned to halt it."
She asked her colleagues to sign an open letter from law firm associates condemning Trump's "all-out attack aimed at dismantling rule-of-law norms."
Cohen said she recognized that not everyone was in a position to act as she had, but warned her colleagues: "If you question if it is as bad as you think it is, it is ten times worse."
Rachel Cohen and a representative for Skadden did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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