See transcript and original email images at the bottom of the page.

Rachel Cohen’s two-week notice, emailed on March 20, 2025, provides a striking example of protest within a corporate legal practice. In it, Cohen announces her intention to resign from her prestigious law firm—unless firm leadership takes a bold public stand against what she views as President Trump’s retaliatory and authoritarian executive orders directed at “Big Law.”

Historical Context

Rachel Cohen was a 2022 Harvard Law School graduate and, in early 2025, a third-year finance associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Skadden was a multinational law firm with more than 1700 associates across 21 offices.

In the first months of President Trump’s second administration, the White House began to issue several executive orders and memos threatening or imposing sanctions on high-profile law firms. These sanctions ranged from suspending security clearances and canceling government contracts to barring firm employees from federal buildings. Many observers noted that this was an attempt to thwart firms that represented Trump’s political opponents or rehired attorneys who had litigated cases against him.

Within this broader standoff, Rachel Cohen’s firm—like others—faced difficult choices. Some tried to broker deals with the administration to avoid financial and reputational harm, including paying hefty sums for Trump-aligned pro bono work and acquiescing to external audits of their hiring practices. Cohen believed such concessions would chill pro bono advocacy and open the door to further intimidation—especially for associates from diverse or marginalized backgrounds.

Strategy and Approach

Cohen’s letter employs a tactic from corporate law: the “conditional notice.” By stating, “This is my two-week notice, revocable if the firm comes up with a satisfactory response,” she introduces a high-stakes ultimatum. It’s an approach designed to apply internal pressure on firm leadership and to rally colleagues who share her concerns. Rather than an under-the-radar resignation, Cohen makes her exit public, tying her personal decision to a demand for concrete action (including joining an amicus brief and refusing to cooperate with what she considers inappropriate federal requests). She promptly shared her resignation on social media channels to encourage others to follow her example.

In follow-up media interviews, Cohen framed her gesture as the culmination of exhaustive attempts to spur the firm to push back against Trump’s executive orders. Having tried private dialogue and internal channels, she decided that a “triggering event”—seeing another major firm capitulate to Trump—left her no alternative but to resign unless her own firm took meaningful steps.

Language and Symbolism

• Emotive Calls to Action
  Cohen’s message brims with urgent, moral language: “I know who I am. I thought I knew who we all were.” and “We do not have time. It is now or it is never.” Her references to “horror” and “chaos” invoke the gravity of looming authoritarian tactics.
• Self-Identification with Historic Resistance
  In her letter, Cohen compares the predicament to “moments before true horror or chaos” that test personal values and demand sacrifice. This symbolic alignment with historical resistance movements underscores the seriousness with which she views Trump’s executive orders.
• Collective Responsibility vs. Personal Consequence
  Cohen speaks both directly to her colleagues (“I suspect you know who I am…”) and more broadly to the firm’s entire ecosystem—partners, support staff, management, and clients. She connects personal integrity to corporate responsibility, highlighting the moral and professional stakes of her demand.
• Conditional Notice as Protest Tool
  By using the language of dealmaking—referencing “concepts of conditional notice,” “firmwide,” and “response to the current moment”—Cohen harnesses the jargon of corporate law to subvert it, turning a common practice (two-week notice) into a pressure campaign.

Impact

The immediate effect of Cohen’s letter was to spark internal debate and widespread media attention. On LinkedIn, for instance, her email and message garnered approximately 15,000 likes, 1400 comments, and 1400 “reposts” within the first week.

As a piece of protest literature, it is both deeply personal and highly strategic. It contributed to a larger conversation about how law firms navigate political pressure. Cohen’s approach foreshadowed further collective statements, open letters, and amicus briefs from Big Law attorneys resisting the administration’s efforts to curtail certain types of legal representation.

While some would argue that resignations alone rarely shift a corporate behemoth’s trajectory, Cohen’s conditional approach—demanding explicit reforms in exchange for staying—carried symbolic weight. By publicly connecting her departure to the firm’s collaboration with an administration she viewed as authoritarian, Cohen reframed resignation not as purely personal but as part of a greater moral imperative.

The broader questions Cohen raised remain relevant:

• How can law firms balance profitability with public interest work under political pressure?
• To what extent should lawyers stand in solidarity against executive overreach?
• How does fear of losing contracts or security clearances shape legal advocacy?

These dilemmas persist whenever powerful institutions threaten to penalize lawyers for the clients they represent or the positions they take. Cohen’s letter stands as one lawyer’s attempt to protect not only her own conscience, but also the integrity and independence of the legal profession.

Original Email Transcript

Subject: With gratitude and urgency
From: Rachel A Cohen
To: Jeremy
CC: Lawrence & 7 more
Time: 9:07 PM

Jeremy and colleagues,

Many deals I work on have concepts of conditional notice. This is mine.

Please consider this email my two week notice, revocable if the firm comes up with a satisfactory response to the current moment, which should include at minimum:

1. Signing on to the firm amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie in its litigation fighting the Trump administration’s executive order against it
2. Committing to broad future representation, regardless of whether powerful people view it as adverse to them
3. Refusal to cooperate with the EEOC’s request for personal information of our colleagues clearly targeted at intimidating non-white employees
4. Public refusal to fire or otherwise force out employees at the Trump administration’s directive or implied directive
5. Public commitment to maintenance of affinity groups and related initiatives

This is not what I saw for my career or for my evening, but Paul Weiss’ decision [to cave to the Trump administration] on DEI, representation and staffing has forced my hand. We do not have time. It is now or it is never, and if it is never, I will not continue to work here.

When I went to law school and to Skadden, I did so in pursuit of agency. I was driven by a desire to be in rooms where decision-makers were, to get to play a role in things that mattered, because things felt so needlessly terrible. It never occurred to me that the people in those rooms might feel that they were powerless. I am forced to hope that our lack of response to the Trump administration’s attacks on our peers, both those at other large firms and the many people in this country with far fewer resources, is rooted in feelings of fear and powerlessness, as opposed to tacit agreement or desire to maximize profit. I still hope that is true. But it has not yet been borne out.

It feels mortifying to say “I suspect you know who I am,” but I suspect you know who I am. Over the last few weeks, I have devoted an inordinate amount of time trying to leverage various relationships and privileges to get our firm and broader industry to admit that we are in the throes of early-stage authoritarianism and that we are uniquely positioned to halt it. There is [an open letter] (now signed by over 600 other AmLaw 200 associates, many of them at this firm), [mainstream media coverage] and an [oped] explaining why I feel this way.

To anyone who feels sympathetic to the views I’ve espoused but wonders why I have taken the path I have: on Thursday, March 6, after the issuance of the Perkins Executive Order, I sent emails to multiple trusted partners in management asking to help with whatever response we coordinated. One of them went unanswered. One of them replied, “Thanks, Rachel. Always appreciate your perspective.” One of them replied offering to talk and then failed to reply to my email asking for a time until a week later, significantly after I had begun speaking publicly. Know that I attended internal meetings about this topic, sent emails to decision makers, avoided commenting on the EEOC investigation publicly or airing any internal firm discourse publicly. I did all of these things out of hope that we would do the right thing if given time and opportunity.

The firm has been given time and opportunity to do the right thing. Thus far, we have not. This is a moment that demands urgency. Whether we are failing to meet it because we are unprepared or because we don’t wish to is irrelevant to me—and to the world—where the outcome is the same. If we were going to resist, we would have done so already. If we were not going to respond to the EEOC (a refusal that would be fully legal), the firm would have already told us.

This is the first firmwide email that has been sent on this topic. What. Are. We. Doing.

Colleagues, if you question if it is as bad as you think it is, it is ten times worse. Whether what we measure is the cowardice in face of lost profits, or the proximity to authoritarianism, or the trauma inflicted on our colleagues who are nonwhite, or the disappointment that I feel in this moment, take what you suspect and multiply it by a factor of ten. Act accordingly. I recognize not everyone is positioned as I am, and cannot act the same way. But do not recruit for this firm if they cannot protect their employees. Do not pretend that what is happening is normal or excusable. It isn’t.

To the many superiors, support staff and friends that I know I disappoint by making this announcement firmwide instead of talking to you first, I sincerely apologize. There are so many thank yous that I have for so many people at this firm. Please know that if you suspect that you have helped me or taught me or cared for me, that I agree and am eternally grateful. In the coming days, I will make every effort to reach out to you separately, but there is urgency here that makes it impossible to go to each of you first. I will do everything in my power to mitigate difficulties caused by my unexpected departure.

Like any self-important adolescent, I spent most of my high school history classes wondering what I would do in the moments before true horror or chaos or where my values were tested and demanded great sacrifice. I do not wonder anymore. I know who I am. I thought I knew who we all were.

Thank you for the opportunity. My personal email is cc’d. I wish each of you the best, and that you use the privileges you hold to work for the best for others.

Rachel
Rachel Cohen
Associate