'Unfathomably embarrassing': More lawyers flee top legal firm after it caves to Trump

At least three top staff members have resigned at a Washington, D.C. law firm after it made a deal under threat from President Donald Trump.

Rachel Cohen, Brenna Trout Frey and Thomas F. Sipp announced their resignations from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom over the past several days.

Skadden is one of the largest law firms in the world, but they "reached an agreement with the Trump administration to avoid becoming a target," wrote the American Bar Association Journal in a Monday report. The deal requires the firm to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services to those who support pro-Trump initiatives, Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Cohen was the first to leave. The third-year finance associate was a 2022 graduate of Harvard Law School. In a letter sent to media outlets, Cohen said she first contacted managing partners to express concerns.

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“These partnerships are totally abdicating their moral duty and responsibility,” she argued when speaking to lawyer and writer David Lat. “They’re acting as if they did not spend the past few decades holding themselves out as places committed to justice and the rule of law. You can’t spend decades proclaiming your dedication to these values, as a form of reputation management, and then abandon them when it’s most important.”

Frey issued her statement on LinkedIn, saying that the executive partner, Jeremy London, sent staff "that attempted to convince some of the best minds in the legal profession that he did us a solid by capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands for fealty and protection money."

London’s letter claimed that the firm should not engage in “illegal DEI discrimination,” and that it would be spending more time helping Trump's "pet projects," she said.

"If that email struck you as a craven attempt to sacrifice the rule of law for self-preservation, I hope you do some soul-searching over the weekend and join me in sending a message that this is unacceptable (in whatever way you can)," she wrote. "As one of my more eloquent former colleagues put it: “Do not pretend that what is happening is normal or excusable. It isn’t.”

She told Business Insider that she knows many can't leave for a variety of reasons, but she was in a position to do it and "felt it was important to make that public.”

Sipp is the latest employee to leave. In an emailed statement to colleagues and friends, he said that even as a child, he loved history and "recognizing the patterns in the stories across time and space." He often questioned, "What would I do if I was there? Would I do the right thing?"

"There was a time when I sincerely believed that this place was committed to its true pro bono causes and diversity initiatives, even though these things may not always be lucrative, because it believed these things would make the world, and this firm, a better place," wrote Sipp. "Having held itself out as a champion for these values, for this firm to turn its back on them so suddenly and so easily was shameful. I am embarrassed to work here. How can Skadden represent others when it can't even stand up for itself?"

Their sentiment is shared by colleagues, if comments on Frey's LinkedIn post are any indication.

One colleague called it, “unfathomably embarrassing," Above The Law quoted. "It makes me wonder why institutions amass such power if they’re completely unwilling to act when it’s most necessary. I don’t understand how we can effectively make the argument to clients that we’ll advocate for them when we won’t even advocate for ourselves.”

Another staff member confessed they felt “disgusted, betrayed, and alarmed. Not helping matters is the flooded DC legal market due to the unjust firing of government attorneys, making finding a new employer incredibly challenging. It’s an embarrassment to be a Skadden attorney today.”

Read the full letter here.