Many prominent law firms have recently found themselves in President Donald Trump’s crosshairs. Skadden, Arps attorney Rachel Cohen encouraged the firm to fight the government’s pressure, only to have her attempts rebuffed and to be effectively forced out from the firm. Cohen shares her fears about how the rule of law is changing in America, raising questions about the legal industry’s role in the checks and balances of the U.S. system of government. Cohen’s experience encourages leaders everywhere to navigate the relationship between their business and broader society.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
These accommodations to the Trump administration, whether from law firms [or institutions like] Columbia University, some people start saying, “Oh, they didn’t give up that much. It’s mostly sort of posturing and optics, and why pick a fight if you don’t have to?”
Yeah, I think a lot of people think that it’s 2016 and are so convinced of their own intellectual superiority that they are ignoring that the Trump administration is outplaying them. There’s a real problem with people being convinced that we are once again in a situation where you have a disorganized president who is blustery, who doesn’t know what he’s doing.
It’s a real indictment of judgment to be able to say, “Donald Trump is stupid, so it doesn’t matter. We’re going to just beat him.” I had people say to me in meetings, “Well, this will all work itself out in three years, because people are going to be coming out of the Trump administration trying to get jobs, and nobody will hire them because we’re all mad.”
We are fundamentally misaligned on what we think is going to come in the next three years if we fold on this now, because I do not think that there is an end to the Trump administration if we do not hold the line and act collectively.
I’ve been asking the CEOs on the show and other CEOs the extent to which business, and I guess law firms as part of that, are part of the checks and balances in the American political system overall. It feels that way to me that it should be, but is there any legal basis for thinking that?
I think business, less so. I certainly would argue that there’s a moral obligation when business leaders want to be listened to, and respected, and dismantle guardrails on American capitalism so that they can achieve certain profits, that then there becomes a moral obligation for you to continue to speak on those things even when it’s hard. But I don’t think there’s a legal one, and I think that’s just the nature of capitalism.
I do think with law firms it’s different because you swear your oaths. Most of us swear an oath to the Constitution. If you work in this industry, and especially if you’ve made millions and millions of dollars off of it, and your industry is crucial for the functioning of American democracy, and you also swore an oath to the law and the concept of this American experiment broadly, then yes, I think there’s an obligation for you to ensure that the law continues to exist.
The decisions to make these accommodations to the Trump administration by Skadden, by Paul Weiss, by other law firms, they’re doing that not necessarily for legal reasons, but for business reasons, right? Because otherwise, it’s going to cost them money. Isn’t it ultimately a business argument to say, “Oh, we want to keep doing that work for the government, or we don’t want to be blacklisted in some way?”
I think number one, it’s a bad business decision in the long term, and I’ll come back to that in a second. I’m going to read to you the profits per equity partner at Paul Weiss and Skadden, Arps.
This is the average, what the average partner earns in profits on an annual basis.
2023 profits per equity partner at Paul Weiss, $6,574,000. Skadden, Arps: $5,403,000 annually. I just want to make sure that when we’re talking about what profits are being lost—and also the people who, again, swore an oath to the Constitution who are working in this industry, who need it to exist, who are clearing $5 million a year—I think that the long-term business strategy of capitulating to someone with authoritarian and oligarchal tendencies. We’ve seen the way that Elon Musk operates and how he turns on people on a dime.
Skadden represented Elon Musk in his Twitter acquisition, and that man has no loyalty. Donald Trump and Elon Musk don’t have loyalty to each other. To hedge your bets on being in good favor with someone who does not respect people, it’s much less about policy aims of the Trump admin, and that I certainly would not be quitting my job. I didn’t quit when he got elected. That’s a political thing. I don’t expect the firm to speak on political issues, though they have in the past, but I certainly don’t expect that from a business.
That’s not what this is. It’s not about politics. It’s about existential infringement on American values, and the existence of a constitutional republic in this country.
What’s next for you and what’s your goal? In some ways you’ve become a bit of a pied piper. I know you created a tool kit for lawyers who want to protest internally. What’s your goal in all this?
I don’t have a next career move. With the nature of my educational credentials, my financial situation, having worked at Skadden for several years, all of these things, I already felt that I had an obligation to try to prevent the bad thing that I see coming.
For some of those folks who are listening to this who may be like, “It’s a little bit too extreme. Is it really that bad?” Maybe there’s some other impact that could be had between here and there about what an alternate view of America’s future looks like?
Oh, that’s the path that I’m on. That’s the path that we go down if people collectively act now and intervene. That’s the path that we’re on, is some bad things will happen. We’re already seeing them happen. There’s people with legal status being deported to Salvadorian prisons because of clerical errors, because they’re deporting people over judge’s orders.
I think that there’s absolutely a path to not just interrupt these harms, but to channel the kind of response and reaction right now to make a much better version of this country. I think no matter what, things get darker before that happens, but I think at the end of the day, I’m coming on and saying, “These bad things could happen,” but I’m acting in a way where I’m very confident they don’t have to.
The fear of retaliation is so strong right now, and where is the bravery going to come from? I guess if you’re already making $5 or $6 million a year and you’re not brave enough to push back, but I don’t know. Jeff Bezos is a billionaire, and he’s not pushing back. Where is that bravery going to come from?
It’s going to come from people of color. It’s going to come from people that understand theory, and allyship, and are plugged into their communities and care about them deeply. Hopefully, we also get some people that have a little bit more agency, but if we don’t, that’s all that’s ever worked anyway.
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