DLA Piper Building ‘Community’ By Shutting Down Affinity Groups
The last time we checked in on DLA Piper, they’d just global-search-and-replaced the pronouns out of every US attorney’s personal email signature blocks. Non-admitted associates are mostly on the honor system to sign off as “Law Clerk” — a designation with actual legal ethics implications — but PRONOUNS required top-down action. The purloined pronouns move arrived without notice and clumsily left a number of signatures with empty parentheses… a visual memorial to cowardice. Tipsters at the time reported a palpable blow to morale.
So the firm decided to take it up a notch!
Welcome to the DLA Piper CommunityTM era! That’s the name of the new initiative the firm announced as they “evolve from our previous diversity and inclusion initiatives.” According to an email circulated by Americas Chair Frank Ryan, this evolution means, “[t]he firm will discontinue resource groups based on demographic categories, cease participation in certain external surveys, and take other steps to remain compliant with the law.”
That’s not evolution, that’s extinction.
To be clear, DLA Piper was already compliant with the law. None of this stuff is against any law. Attorneys putting pronouns in signature blocks? Legal. Affinity groups and support networks? Legal. Participating in surveys? Very legal. Even taking the most aggressive read of the Supreme Court’s anti-Affirmative Action turn, there’s nothing even arguably illegal about any of this stuff. The programs described in this email rank as the most benign and unobtrusive diversity initiatives imaginable. They’re one step removed from just sending a bland Black History Month acknowledgement email… which, hell, might also be on the chopping block as one of undefined the “other steps” of the DLA Piper Community.
What Ryan meant to say is “compliant with the whims of the Trump administration.” There’s nothing illegal about quote-unquote DEI. To the contrary, as corporate-speak meant to bundle all the other legal obligations an employer has to women, minorities, LGBTQ folks, people with disabilities, and veterans under one umbrella, it actually more or less defines what legal compliance looks like. But the administration has threatened legal action over what it imagines DEI to be, lashing out with EEOC threats against a number of Biglaw firms already.
DLA Piper isn’t looking to remain compliant with the law, they’re looking to avoid getting hassled and having to be the ones who have to take the administration to court over some baseless retaliatory action.
We have an inside look look at the DLA Piper leadership meeting as they discussed the option of following other firms in nuking every nod to diversity as a strategy to avoid Republican lawfare attacks:
Just ask Cooley, who got roped up in the recent spate of EEOC threats, and received this specific call out in their letter from the government:
However, as of March 14, 2025, Cooley’s DEI Action Plan landing page is no longer available to the public. Cooley’s sudden, overnight removal of its “board approved DEI plan” from its public facing landing page gives me pause.
No bad faith deed goes unpunished.
Turning tail only emboldens these people because once a firm hands them an inch, they know they can extract a mile. This isn’t about a “Black Lawyer Networking Lunch,” but an end run around anti-discrimination laws. The administration knows it can’t just wipe out that body of law, but by putting every employer in fear, they hope nature will take its course. Firms stop reporting their diversity numbers — the surveys DLA talks about — start eliminating support groups for attorneys facing unique challenges — the affinity groups — and eventually forcing firms to think twice about hiring qualified diverse candidates out of panic that they’ll be forced to prove they weren’t “doing DEI.”
Actually, maybe this is about an evolution. But in the same way the wildebeest evolved into nature’s chew toy — a lumbering animal naturally selected to get rolled by lions and pecked at by vultures while we all watch.
Earlier: Biglaw Firm Scrubs Pronouns From Attorney Signatures Without Telling Anyone
Another Firm Strips ‘Diversity’ From Website
Biglaw Firm Quietly Begins Purging Diversity Language From Website
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
