Ed.
note:
Please
welcome
Vivia
Chen
back
to
the
pages
of
Above
the
Law.
Subscribe
to
her
Substack,
“The
Ex-Careerist,” here.
I
HAVE
MIXED
FEELINGS
about Ryan
Powers, the
second-year
associate
who
was
fired
by
Wall
Street
law
firm
Davis
Polk
&
Wardwell.
Though
he’s
been
lauded
on
social
media
and
various
news
outlets
(The
Parnas
Perspective and Above
the
Law)
for
standing
up
to
Big
Law
and
speaking
truth
to
power,
I
am
not
quite
ready
to
call
him
a
hero.
Here’s
what
happened: According
to
Powers,
he
was
fired
on
June
12
merely
four
hours
after
he
informed
the
firm
that
he
intended
to
publish
an
article
about
the
threat
to
civil
liberties
posed
by
government
surveillance.
Just
a
day
before,
the
firm
warned
him
that
his
writings
in
various
news
publications
had
breached
internal
policy
–
a
policy,
he
explains,
that
“gave
the
firm
broad
discretion
to
block
employee
speech
on
any
topic
it
chose
to
view
as
relevant
to
its
interests.”
The
firm
offered
no
explanation,
“only
that
something
had
been
flagged,
and
I
was
expected
to
stop.”
He
refused
to
comply: “I
believed
the
issues
I
was
raising
mattered
–
and
I
rejected
the
idea
that
writing
about
fundamental
rights
and
democracy
was
somehow
wrong.”
He
makes
a
broader
point:
“This
isn’t
just
about
one
firm.
It’s
about
Big
Law:
an
industry
increasingly
beholden
to
power,
where
employers
are
quietly
deciding
what
their
lawyers
are
allowed
to
say
–
not
just
in
the
office,
but
in
their
lives
beyond
it.”
OK,
I’m
with
him
so
far.
Powers
then
rails
against
Big
Law’s
hypocrisy
—
suppressing
speech
in
the
name
of
maintaining
neutrality
when,
in
fact,
“the
clients
we
serve,
the
cases
we
take,
and
the
influence
we
exert
make
us
inherently
political.”
I’m
with
him
on
that
too.
But
then
he
cites
Davis
Polk’s
representation
of
Trump
Media
&
Technology
Group
on
a
crypto
venture
as
Exhibit
A.
That
last
point
left
me
scratching
my
head.
If
Davis
Polk
is
now
representing
a
precious
Trump
interest
(his
crypto
ventures
have
made $57
million so
far),
why
would
Powers
think
the
firm
would
allow
him
to
shoot
his
mouth
off
on
anything
remotely
critical
of
Trump?
What’s
more,
Powers
was
writing
about
the
dangers
of
government
surveillance
and
how
companies
like Peter
Thiel’s
Palantir
Technologies,
whose
financial
advisors
Davis
Polk had
represented,
are
helping
to
erode
individual
liberty.
It’s
not
like
Davis
Polk
has
been
subtle
about
its
pivot
towards
Trump. This
spring,
the
firm
hired
former
Trump
White
House
counsel
Stefan
Passantino
to
beef
up
its
lobbying
presence,
and
quietly
scrubbed
all
mention
of
partners Greg
Andres and Uzo
Asonye’s
roles
in
the
Mueller
investigation.
Given
all
that,
Powers’s
decision
to
keep
publishing
articles
critical
of
Trump
world
under
his
real
name
(Davis
Polk
was
never
mentioned
by
name;
Power
was
usually
identified
as
a
Harvard
Law
School
graduate
who
works
at
“an
international
law
firm”)
was
asking
for
trouble.
Though
his
writings
weren’t
angry
screeds,
they
were
still
jabs
at
MAGA.
But
even
without
the
Trump
factor,
I
wonder
how
many
firms
would
tolerate
a
direct
hit
on
a
major
client.
Powers
knew
what
he
was
doing
was
going
to
piss
off
management. Which
is
why
I
found
it
a
bit
disingenuous
when
he
suggested
that
he
was
caught
off-guard
by
his
firing:
“I
understand
why
they
are
doing
what
they’re
doing.”
he told Bloomberg
Law.
“At
the
same
time,
it’s
very
sad
on
a
personal
level
because
it
ends
my
Big
Law
career
sooner
than
I
had
anticipated
and
in
a
very
different
way
than
I
had
anticipated.”
Clearly,
he
wanted
to
force
the
issue,
make
a
grand
statement,
and
come
off
as
an
avatar
of
defiance
in
the
face
of
authoritarianism.
The
only
question
is
whether
he
pulled
it
off.
While
I
too
am
alarmed
at
how
Big
Law
is
capitulating
to
the
Trump
administration
—
turning
its
back
on
diversity
and
social
justice,
paying
extortion
money
(nearly
a
$1
billion
in
free
legal
services)
to
get
off
his
shitlist,
and
generally
contorting
itself
to
curry
favor
with
Trump
—
I’m
put
off
by
Powers’s
grandstanding.
His
après-firing
post
on Instagram shows
how
his
ego
has
taken
over:
Today,
I’m
exposing
a
culture
of
unchecked
power,
secret
conversations,
and
dark
money
that’s
long
overdue
for
public
scrutiny.
Because
when
lawyers
with
the
most
privilege
and
protection
are
too
afraid
to
speak,
democracy
dies.
Not
in
chaos,
but
in
comfort
—
behind
closed
doors,
in
shadowy
back
rooms,
on
billion-dollar
yachts.
I
know
Davis
Polk
partners
are
taking
home
a
tidy
bundle
(its
profit
per
partner
is
$7.8
million)
but
I
doubt
they’re
hanging
out
on
billion-dollar
yachts
like
Russian
oligarchs.
As
for
“exposing”
Big
Law’s
dark
side,
didn’t
we
already
know
that
many
of
the
muckety-mucks
of
the
most
profitable
firms
in
the
nation
will
sell
their
own
mothers
to
keep
the
money
machine
flowing?
He
also
says
that
he
wrote
his
articles
to
make
the
legal
implications
of
Trump’s
actions
“easier
to
understand,”
but
couldn’t
he
have
done
so
under
a
pseudonym?
I
AM
ON
THE
SAME
PAGE
with
Powers
on
almost
all
of
the
points
he
raised
about
the
state
of
the
legal
profession
and
sincerely
want
to
cheer
him
on.
But
deliberately
getting
himself
fired
then
wrapping
himself
in
the
flag
of
victimhood
strikes
a
false
note.
I
know
what
he
did
takes
guts
and
that
he’s
sacrificed
a
lot
—
a
good
salary,
health
insurance,
and
security
—
yet
his
approach
feels
self-indulgent.
But
perhaps
I’m
being
too
harsh.
Perhaps
I’m
missing
the
whole
point.
Perhaps
this
kind
of
grandstanding
is
what
it
takes
to
drive
home
a
point
that
needs
constantly
reminding
—
that
Big
Law
is
bending
to
an
authoritarian
leader
and
jeopardising
the
rule
of
law.
So
is
Powers
heroic,
naive
or
annoying.
Well,
who
says
he
can’t
be
all
three?
Subscribe
to
read
more
at
The
Ex-Careerist….
Vivia
Chen writes “The
Ex-Careerist” column
on
Substack
where
she
unleashes
her
unvarnished
views
about
the
intersection
of
work,
life,
and
politics.
A
former
lawyer,
she
was
an
opinion
columnist
at
Bloomberg
Law
and
The
American
Lawyer.
Subscribe
to
her
Substack
by
clicking
here:
