14/07/2025
Equity at $1,000 an Hour: How Big Law Sells Diversity Without Sacrifice
They speak in the language of virtue. Their websites glow with sepia-toned portraits of carefully selected associates, each a curated checkbox of race, gender, orientation, and sometimes all three at once, set against banners touting “inclusion,” “equity,” and “commitment to change.” These are not non-profits or social crusaders. These are America’s most powerful law firms, whose partners bill at rates that would make a hedge fund blush, whose real clientele looks less like the United Nations and more like the cocktail hour at a country club, and whose actual impact on poor and minority communities is, in sum, nonexistent.
But the hard things, these firms do not do. They do not lower their rates to attract clients from the underserved. They do not routinely represent minorities facing criminal charges at reduced rates, or pro bono. They do not send their top litigators to bail hearings or landlord-tenant court. They do not relieve the pressure on public defenders drowning in caseloads.
Go into any criminal courtroom tomorrow and I guarantee what you’ll see is this: a legion of poor and mostly minority defendants represented by public defenders and local attorneys retained for modest flat fees, and absolutely zero attorneys from the big firms that trumpet their diversity and inclusion, because the poor cannot afford them. It’ll be the same story in landlord-tenant court, where the poor are evicted from their homes, and in every other courtroom where the litigants are poor people and not giant corporations.
https://conservativeopinion.com/equity-at-1000-an-hour-how-big-law-sells-diversity-without-sacrifice/
