Large law firms plan to refuse to give the Trump administration information on their clients’ diversity initiatives as part of federal discrimination investigations.
The 20 firms facing questions from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will reject the agency’s inquiries related to clients over confidentiality concerns, according to three people familiar with the matter. At least three firms—Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett—are also seeking to strike a deal with the White House that would resolve the probes.
The EEOC wants the firms to name clients that require them to hit diversity targets for staffing on legal matters and to detail any incentives earned by meeting certain metrics. The agency in a batch of March 17 letters cited Microsoft Corp.'s diversity program for the tech company’s law firms as an example.
The firms’ responses are expected to start a legal tug of war with the agency, which President Donald Trump directed to police major firms for bias in diversity programs.
“It’s core to our profession to not disclose things about your clients or communications with your clients,” said Joshua Roffman, a Washington lawyer who advises companies on diversity initiatives. “You don’t even want to open the door a little bit to that.”
William Burck, a litigator at Quinn Emanuel who has emerged as a go-between for firms facing retribution from Trump, and Gibson Dunn lawyer Jason Schwartz are separately advising several of those hit with EEOC inquiries. Allan Bloom, the co-chair of Proskauer’s labor and employment group, and Washington attorney David Fortney are also advising some of the firms.
The firms plan to respond by the April 15 deadline in the letters, in which the EEOC also requested details about hiring and promotions, job applicants, and individual attorneys, the people said. They’ve decided not to challenge Andrea Lucas, the EEOC’s Trump-appointed acting leader, despite questions about her authority to investigate firms via public letters.
Those on the EEOC list determined that ignoring the letters or refusing to turn over any information could get them more unwanted attention from the administration, according to the people.
The EEOC investigations are part of the administration’s attack on the legal industry. The White House has issued executive orders targeting firms and extracted deals from others for $340 million in services for Trump-aligned causes. Those directives and agreements have ensnared nine law firms so far.
The EEOC typically polices workplace discrimination by investigating charges filed by workers against their employers. The agency’s commissioners can self-initiate charges to launch investigations, but those charges usually are not made public.
Lucas’ top priorities include “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination,” she said in a Jan. 20 statement when she was tapped for the acting role. She told the firms in the letters that she is “concerned” that their DEI programs and policies “may entail unlawful disparate treatment in terms, conditions, and privileges of employment” based on race and sex in violation of federal law.
An EEOC spokesperson declined to comment.
Clients Push Firms on DEI
Microsoft has one of the longest-running diversity programs for outside lawyers advising the tech company, dating back to 2008. The company expanded the program in 2020 “to address acute representation issues in African American/Black and Hispanic/Latinx communities,” according to its website.
The program encourages firms to hit certain metrics for diversity—including race, sex, and sexual orientation—on legal teams staffing Microsoft matters, as well as firmwide goals for increasing diversity among partners and in leadership roles.
The moves were part of an effort to spur change at top firms competing for work, but they drew rebukes from critics who called the programs thinly-veiled “quotas” that violate longstanding federal anti-discrimination laws. The Supreme Court’s 2023 decision restricting the use of race in college admissions increased scrutiny of a wide range of diversity hiring programs across industries.
“It sounds like a quota,” former EEOC commissioner Chai Feldblum said of the diversity programs, “but clients are doing nothing unlawful by saying ‘You have to hit a number.’” The pressure is on firms to hit targets without making hiring and other decisions based solely on applicants’ race or sex, said Feldblum, who was appointed to a Democratic seat on the EEOC in the Obama administration.
Microsoft in 2020 named Seattle’s Perkins Coie as a “top performing firm” for increasing the number of hours that diverse attorneys worked on legal matters. The company also credited the firm for expanding the share of diverse lawyers in the firm’s partner ranks and on its management committee.
Cooley LLP, a Silicon Valley firm with deep tech industry roots, earned a 3% bonus on top of the annual legal fees it billed Microsoft the following year for meeting diversity targets, according to Lucas.
Perkins Coie is suing the Trump administration over an executive order aimed at the firm for its election-related work. Lawyers from Cooley are representing Chicago’s Jenner & Block in a separate suit challenging a similar order against the firm.
Representatives for Microsoft, Perkins Coie, and Cooley did not respond to requests for comment.
Coca-Cola Co. rolled out the most ambitious of corporate diversity policies in 2021. The company said it would cut fees by 30% for law firms that failed to meet diversity requirements, including earmarking billable time for Black and other attorneys.
Bradley Gayton, Coca-Cola’s legal chief, said at the time that drastic action was needed to combat disparities at top firms. Coca-Cola put the program on hold four months later and Gayton resigned after less than a year on the job.
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