An attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom posted a strong resignation letter urging the law firm to stand up to President Trump amid growing pressure on law firms to bow down to his orders.
Rachel Cohen, an associate at the firm, shared a “conditional notice” of resignation with her colleagues on Thursday evening. She also posted a screenshot of the letter on LinkedIn, which quickly went viral, being shared over 1,100 times by Saturday afternoon.
In her resignation email, Cohen wrote, “Please consider this email my two-week notice revocable if the firm comes up with a satisfactory response to our current moment.”
She added in her LinkedIn post that this moment is “existential.”
“If being on this career path means I have to accept that my industry—this is not just about Skadden—will let an authoritarian government ignore the courts, I cannot continue. As I’ve said before, others stand to lose far more than just a paycheck,” she said.
Cohen resigned just hours after the Trump administration reversed an executive order that had stripped security clearances from attorneys at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. The reversal followed the firm’s promise to provide $40 million in free legal services for cases representing a wide range of political views.
The executive order was aimed at Paul Weiss due to the actions of former employee Mark Pomerantz, who had been overseeing a probe into Trump’s alleged financial crimes. In response to Trump’s demands, the firm suddenly acknowledged that Pomerantz had acted improperly.
On social media, critics have accused the law firm of giving in to Trump’s “shakedown.” The firm’s chair, Brad Karp, defended the decision in an email to employees, according to the New York
You can read Cohen’s entire letter in the screenshots below:
Part 1:
Part 2:
