Biglaw Firm Ends Diversity Billing Codes, Scrubs Key Sections Of Website

Back in 2007, Nixon Peabody commissioned a “not-a-theme-song” theme song for the firm titled “Everyone’s A Winner At Nixon Peabody!” It was delightfully cringe, but mostly a fun goof. Then the firm decided to experience the Streisand Effect for themselves and started issuing copyright strike notices and pressuring Above the Law to rat out our source, turning what would’ve been a weekend laugh into an 18-year running gag for this publication.

These days, “All Lives” are winners over at Nixon Peabody, where we’ve learned that the firm is taking the step of nuking its billing codes for diversity work:

Tipsters also reported that an in-person meeting also discussed plans to end in-house affinity groups. This would follow the same move from DLA Piper, trying to get ahead of the Trump administration’s haphazard “anti-DEI” efforts by making sure there’s no monthly happy hour for women lawyers or something. But so far, judging by the firm’s website, some form of these groups seem to remain — even if lawyers can no longer clock their time for working with them.

Firms entering the appeasement game draw upon the “All Lives Matter” counter-rhetoric that sprung up as a response to Black Lives Matter — a superficially benign, artificial smoothing over of difference in the name of “equality.” And yet, what’s the threat to “equality” posed by a monthly women’s resource group luncheon? Affinity groups are just networking opportunities that help combat the implicit bias of the informal, “old boys network” mentoring model that successfully kept the white in white-shoe for decades.

The Nixon Peabody website still sports an extensive DEI section, but with noticeable changes. For instance, here’s the page from last month when we were first tipped about impending changes to the firm’s diversity commitment:

By contrast, here’s the page this morning:

“Network groups with a voice” as long as no one publicly acknowledges who’s doing the networking, I guess. “Orwellian” gets overused, but purging the names of all the network groups because the firm doesn’t want to admit to “Black, Asian and Middle Eastern American, Hispanic, LGBTQ+, Women, and Veterans” lawyers working together falls squarely in the Orwellian camp. But, it does seem the groups might still exist… assuming the “network groups” described in this passage only had their names excised and this isn’t referring to some new and further weakened entities.

From last month:

You’ll never guess which bullet point failed to survive into June.

Well, actually you’ll easily guess which bullet point got the axe:

This makes sense when you remember the only thing conservatives hate more than the idea of diversity is having to talk about diversity. Right-wing voices complain about “trigger warnings” and bemoan that they can’t casually drop racial slurs — for education, of course! — but the moment they might have to hear about the legacy of segregation they demand safe spaces and bubble wrap. So it’s not surprising that “sometimes we talk about police brutality” got scrubbed even before they delete their Mansfield badge.

Though the Mansfield badge, noting the firm’s seventh consecutive year of certification plus, now goes to an empty page — which is quite the metaphor:

A PDF of the press release is still available on the site… for now.

As disappointing as it may be to see firms running scared, it’s not particularly surprising from Nixon Peabody. A firm that went to great lengths to scrub its song from the internet is not going to flinch at whitewashing its website. And the firm might try to pass this off “All Lives” style as a cosmetic change. Except when talking about inclusion, erasing people is the whole problem. When the firm treats merely naming people as a liability, then there’s no functional workplace trust left to preserve.

Back in 2023, Nixon Peabody embraced Trump as a client when the rest of the legal industry saw him as a toxic drag on existing client relationships. At that time, the firm told annoyed partners to get over it.

Which will probably be the response this time too.

Earlier: Biglaw Firm Adds Donald Trump As Client… Rest Of The Firm May Not Be Too Happy About It
After Nixon Peabody Hitched Itself To Donald Trump, Blindsided Partners Told To Get Over It
DLA Piper Building ‘Community’ By Shutting Down Affinity Groups

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.

The post Biglaw Firm Ends Diversity Billing Codes, Scrubs Key Sections Of Website appeared first on Above the Law.