Remember
when
general
counsel
were
the
cavalry?
When
the
corporate
legal
world
was
going
to
save
Biglaw
from
itself
by
threatening
to
yank
business
from
firms
that
couldn’t
put
a
diverse
team
on
the
field?
For
a
hot
minute
there,
it
actually
seemed
to
be
working.
Well.
About
that.
A
new
Bloomberg
Law
report
documents
what
many
of
us
have
suspected:
under
Trump
2.0,
corporate
America
is
walking
away
from
the
diversity
commitments
they
once
dangled
over
their
outside
law
firms
like
a
sword
of
Damocles.
And
in
the
process,
they’re
taking
what
little
hard-won
progress
existed
in
the
legal
profession
and
tossing
it
into
the
nearest
dumpster.
Microsoft,
which
had
one
of
the
longest-running
outside
counsel
diversity
programs
in
Biglaw
history
dating
to
2008,
has
ended
the
initiative.
That
program
tied
bonuses
to
diversity
metrics
on
teams
working
Microsoft
matters,
as
well
as
firmwide
efforts
to
diversify
partner
ranks.
Now?
“We
do
not
offer
incentives
or
bonuses
tied
to
the
workforce
composition
of
our
outside
counsel
or
suppliers,”
a
Microsoft
spokesperson
said,
declining
to
say
when
the
company
made
the
shift.
Cool,
great,
very
brave.
Then
there’s
Meta.
The
Facebook
parent,
which
since
2017
had
required
at
least
a
third
of
lawyers
on
its
matters
to
be
women
or
ethnic
minorities,
announced
in
January
2025
it
was
dropping
diversity
requirements
for
outside
suppliers
entirely.
Poof.
These
weren’t
symbolic
commitments
—
they
were
among
the
most
concrete
mechanisms
in-house
counsel
had
developed
to
actually
move
the
needle.
Back
in
2021,
we
covered
Coca-Cola
GC
Bradley
Gayton’s
landmark
policy
demanding
firms
staff
at
least
30%
of
new
matters
with
diverse
attorneys,
with
at
least
half
that
billable
time
going
to
Black
lawyers,
on
pain
of
fee
reductions
or
removal
from
the
roster
altogether.
It
was
the
most
aggressive
outside
counsel
diversity
mandate
Biglaw
had
ever
seen.
It
lasted
approximately
three
months.
Gayton
was
out
after
only
eight
months
on
the
job
—
shown
the
door
just
weeks
after
rolling
out
the
policy,
with
Coca-Cola
immediately
putting
the
diversity
plan
on
pause.
Nobody
officially
explained
what
happened.
The
CEO
issued
the
corporate
equivalent
of
a
hostage
statement
but
with
a
massive
severance
package,
thanking
Gayton
for
his
service
and
calling
him
“a
strategic
and
results-oriented
leader.”
Gayton
issued
his
own
anodyne
quote
about
the
“privilege”
of
the
work.
The
lesson
corporate
America
apparently
took
from
the
Gayton
episode
wasn’t
“we
need
to
protect
bold
GCs
who
push
for
change.”
It
was
“don’t
be
Bradley
Gayton.”
The
current
Bloomberg
Law
story
is
really
just
that
lesson,
playing
out
at
scale.
Trump
2.0
didn’t
create
the
corporate
retreat
from
outside
counsel
diversity
mandates.
He
just
made
it
socially
acceptable
to
surrender
openly,
instead
of
doing
it
quietly
with
an
eight-figure
severance
check.
The
fear
driving
the
retreat
is
palpable,
even
among
those
who
know
better.
“Even
if
what
they’re
doing
is
quite
popular
and
legally
safe,
if
they’ve
got
the
label
on
it
of
DEI
or
something
that
sounds
like
DEI,
they
think
that
it’s
putting
a
target
on
their
back
because
the
administration
doesn’t
like
DEI,”
said
David
Glasgow,
an
attorney
who
advises
firms
on
their
diversity
measures.
This
is
institutional
cowardice
dressed
up
as
legal
caution.
Paula
Boggs,
the
former
GC
of
Starbucks,
put
it
plainly:
“There
are
law
firms
that
mouthed
a
commitment
to
diversity
and
inclusion
because
they
knew
that
would
make
them
more
palatable
to
companies.
In
the
absence
of
that
pressure
they
feel
no
need
to
engage
in
it
and
make
the
effort.”
Read
that
again.
The
diversity
commitments
that
law
firms
made
to
land
and
keep
corporate
clients
were,
for
many
of
them,
always
just
marketing.
Even
in
2019,
when
over
170
GCs
signed
an
open
letter
to
Biglaw
demanding
statistical
progress
or
threatening
to
take
their
business
elsewhere,
there
were
those
that
suspected
it
was
but
a
momentary
concern.
The
cynics
were
right
then:
a
lot
of
those
firms
just
hoped
the
heat
would
die
down.
Now
it
has.
And
the
data
tells
a
stark
story.
The
share
of
Black
summer
associates
at
law
firms
fell
for
the
third
straight
year
in
2025,
dropping
to
about
8.5%,
according
to
the
National
Association
for
Law
Placement.
The
overall
proportion
of
summer
associates
of
color
fell
to
roughly
38%
—
the
lowest
since
2020.
The
gains
that
GC
pressure
helped
produce
are
already
eroding.
Years
of
progress,
evaporating
in
months.
You
want
to
know
what
accelerated
this?
Look
no
further
than
the
Trump
administration’s
systematic
campaign
to
bully
every
diversity
infrastructure
in
the
profession
out
of
existence.
Like
the
FTC’s
decision
to
send
warning
letters
to
42
Biglaw
firms,
threatening
antitrust
liability
for
participating
in
Diversity
Lab’s
Mansfield
Certification
program,
a
program
that
doesn’t
actually
work
the
way
the
FTC
described,
as
actual
antitrust
lawyers
were
quick
to
note.
Didn’t
matter.
The
goal
was
intimidation,
not
accuracy.
And
it
worked:
Diversity
Lab
announced
in
February
2026
that
it
was
pausing
the
Mansfield
certification
program
entirely,
its
operating
funds
“substantially
depleted”
after
clients
began
fleeing.
Biglaw,
famously
brave
when
billing
$2,000
an
hour,
apparently
has
limits.
And
of
course,
into
this
vacuum
strides
Edward
Blum
—
the
man
who
has
made
a
career
out
of
dismantling
every
mechanism
society
has
devised
to
address
historical
inequity
—
to
declare
victory.
“It
is
an
altogether
positive
development
that
law
firm
clients
are
no
longer
specifying
the
racial
makeup
of
the
legal
teams
assigned
to
represent
them,”
said
Blum,
whose
advocacy
group
led
the
suits
that
prompted
the
Supreme
Court
to
strike
down
affirmative
action
in
college
admissions
three
years
ago.
“The
race
or
ethnicity
of
a
lawyer
is
irrelevant.”
Lovely.
The
man
who
has
spent
years
manipulating
the
system
and
manufacturing
plaintiffs
to
achieve
his
political
ends
gets
to
announce
the
end
of
an
era.
When
Blum’s
American
Alliance
for
Equal
Rights
began
suing
Biglaw
firms
over
their
diversity
fellowships
in
2023,
Perkins
Coie,
Morrison
&
Foerster,
and
Gibson
Dunn
all
folded.
By
December
2023,
Blum
was
declaring
there
was
“nothing
left
to
do”
in
the
law
firm
space
because
the
profession
had
surrendered.
Now
corporate
clients
are
doing
the
same
thing.
GCs
are
uniquely
positioned
to
drive
change
because
they
have
leverage
law
firms
can’t
ignore.
But
that
leverage
only
works
if
you’re
willing
to
use
it.
And
right
now,
the
corporate
legal
world
has
decided
the
political
environment
makes
that
leverage
too
costly
to
deploy.
Kathryn
Rubino
is
a
Senior
Editor
at
Above
the
Law,
host
of The
Jabot
podcast,
and
co-host
of Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
AtL
tipsters
are
the
best,
so
please
connect
with
her.
Feel
free
to
email her with
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments
and
follow
her
on
Twitter @Kathryn1 or
Bluesky @Kathryn1