Big Law makes their workplaces safe for Starbuck baristas
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little miss harvard law, ‘47
Hot Air: Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by attorney Robin Keller describing how she lost her job at a large law firm after daring to speak up in favor of the Dobbs decision. This didn’t happen at a general staff meeting but on a conference call explicitly held to allow staffers to discuss the decision.
After the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June, global law firm Hogan Lovells organized an online conference call for female employees. As a retired equity partner still actively serving clients, I was invited to participate in what was billed as a “safe space” for women at the firm to discuss the decision. It might have been a safe space for some, but it wasn’t safe for me.
Everyone else who spoke on the call was unanimous in her anger and outrage about Dobbs. I spoke up to offer a different view. I noted that many jurists and commentators believed Roe had been wrongly decided. I said that the court was right to remand the issue to the states. I added that I thought abortion-rights advocates had brought much of the pushback against Roe on themselves by pushing for extreme policies. I referred to numerous reports of disproportionately high rates of abortion in the black community, which some have called a form of genocide. I said I thought this was tragic.
The outrage was immediate. The next speaker called me a racist and demanded that I leave the meeting. Other participants said they “lost their ability to breathe” on hearing my comments. After more of the same, I hung up.
Hot Air: But that wasn’t the end of it. Someone inside the company filed a complaint. Her access to clients was cut off pending an investigation. A statement was released to a progressive site that covers legal matters and her name was also leaked. Three weeks later an outside firm concluded that her comments violated the company’s anti-harassment policy. After a 44-year career, she was not only fired but blackballed by other firms wary of courting controversy. Keller said she wasn’t surprised by the response of some of the people on the call but she was surprised how quickly the firm itself “kowtowed to a woke faction inside its workforce.”
I read this sorry story yesterday, and had the same reaction the Professor has expressed today:
[T]he female lawyers who “lost their ability to breathe” upon hearing a contrary view aren’t fit to practice law, which requires that one breathe while engaging in argument with people who disagree.
It’s sometimes hard to keep cool when a judge is ripping you apart in his courtroom, and I’m sure we can all sympathize with the gentle flower who bursts into tears when it happens, but if your $3,000 per hour lawyer is going to fall apart during a tough negotiation conducted in a private conference room, you should worry. In fact, before hiring any firm to represent you, you should probably insist on vetting every single partner and associate who might work on your case, paying particular attention to female graduates from once-top law schools.
