US Federal Trade Commission Warns Law Firms About DEI Hiring

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued warning letters to 42 law firms, cautioning that certain diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring initiatives could be unfair and anticompetitive.

 

The move comes amid a broader rollback of DEI programmes under President Donald Trump’s administration, which has dismantled diversity initiatives across government and prompted several private companies to scale back similar efforts.

 

The letters were sent to many of the country’s largest and most profitable firms. Among them are Paul Weiss, WilmerHale and Perkins Coie, all of which were targeted last year by executive orders that threatened their business practices, citing alleged discriminatory hiring.

 

Paul Weiss, along with Skadden Arps and Latham & Watkins, later reached agreements with the White House to neutralise or bypass those orders, pledging millions of dollars’ worth of free legal work for causes aligned with the administration.

 

WilmerHale and Perkins Coie, also named in the FTC’s latest correspondence, successfully challenged the executive orders in court, with judges ruling them unconstitutional.

 

The FTC said all 42 firms participated in a programme run by consultancy Diversity Lab, which aims to expand gender and racial representation within the legal profession. Since 2017, Diversity Lab has offered a certification requiring firms to ensure at least 30 per cent of candidates for leadership roles come from underrepresented groups.

 

The consultancy has previously defended the programme’s legality, pointing to a May 2025 federal court ruling that found the certification does not impose quotas or discriminatory hiring practices.

FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson said the firms were warned that agreements to meet DEI benchmarks could “distort competition for labour in legal professions”, including in hiring, pay and promotion decisions.

 

The scrutiny follows a separate move by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which last March demanded detailed hiring data from 20 major law firms, including information on applicants’ race and gender.

 

A Reuters special report published in July found that 46 of the 50 highest-grossing US law firms during the Trump era had removed or modified references to diversity, equity and inclusion on their websites.

 

Representatives for the firms named did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while the White House referred queries to the FTC.

 

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