I am finishing up a working week in New York, where I’ve been since Tuesday, following a flying visit to Washington DC the day before. I always enjoy catching up with the many clients and contacts we have here, and naturally conversation usually turns to what US firms are doing in London, be it the latest heavyweight lateral hire, merger rumour or NQ salary hike. But this time something which feels much bigger dominated every meeting I had – The Trump agenda around DEI.
On our Byfield Bytes podcast two weeks ago which immediately followed the inauguration, Meganne Tillay and I considered what impact Trump’s agenda would have on law firms . It was viscerally clear that diversity programmes and environmental commitments that have been part of the fabric of law firm operations for at least a decade were now completely out of line with Trump’s agenda.
So how much of a problem does Big Law have? Political rhetoric is one thing but legislation banning certain DEI practices is quite another. Is the choice as binary as defying the President or reneging on long held commitments and values? Is the problem bigger for firms doing work for the US government? Will clients such as Meta, Google and others who have already announced rollbacks of their own DEI policies expect their lawyers to follow?
During the week I have spoken to numerous law firm leaders and senior comms professionals to ask them that exact question and received a fascinating range of views. Broadly they fell into four camps.
- Law firms are probably going to stay out of the immediate firing line from Trump, so aside from turning down the volume on announcements around new initiatives, so there is no real reason to worry.
- DEI just needs a bit of a rebrand – i.e. call it something else in your firm – and again there is no cause for too much concern.
- This is an issue and firms are going to have to start scaling back on DEI initiatives and potentially DEI professionals.
- One firm told me they were prepared to litigate against The Government if necessary in order to protect their DEI programmes.
My own view aligns with the third point above and I think that is what most firms are starting to work through. I really hope the ‘let’s see what happens before we do anything’ approach which we see all too often on contentious issues is not the default approach. Everybody’s values and some people’s careers may be challenged in the next few months and firms need to clearly state what they are going to do in response now. Watch this space – this is the defining legal sector issue for 2025, you heard it here first.
