Shaking Up Big Law, Harvard-Founded Student Group Goes National
The Pipeline Parity Project, which is working to end mandatory arbitration among legal employers, has rebranded as the People's Parity Project and unveiled plans to establish law school chapters across the country.
June 25, 2019 at 02:29 PM
5 minute read
A grassroots group of law students who banded together last year to oppose mandatory arbitration at law firms aims to expand into a national network of law school chapters while also taking on a broader scope of advocacy.
The Pipeline Parity Project, which started at Harvard Law School in April of 2018, announced this week that it has been renamed the People's Parity Project to reflect its wider mission of “demystifying—and dismantling—coercive legal tools that allow the powerful to get away with violating workers' rights, ripping off consumers, and shielding corporations from accountability.”
In addition to the name change, the group has raised funds to hire paid law student organizers and is looking to establish chapters at law campuses across the country.
“The People's Parity Project was chosen as a way to capture the spirit of what we're doing and reflect the scope of our work,” according to a June 24 announcement of the group's new name. “We are committed to fighting on behalf of workers, women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and others who are systematically marginalized within the legal profession and by the law itself.”
According to project co-founder Molly Coleman, who is entering her third year at Harvard Law, the group hopes to expand to at least six other law campuses in the coming year. About a dozen law schools have made serious inquiries about joining, though the project's leaders are wary of growing too fast too quickly, she said.
The paid national organizers will help guide the expanded organization and provide continuity once the founders graduate law school, Coleman added. They may be responsible for activities such as organizing lobbying efforts, letter-writing campaigns, or protests against judicial nominees. She declined to say how much money the group has raised thus far.
“Really, we're looking for people with organizing backgrounds who will be responsible for working on our strategic vision and thinking about how we change the legal profession, the role of lawyers, and the role of the law in ensuring people have access to courts and are able to enforce their rights,” Coleman said.
The project—which is a registered nonprofit—grew out of outrage over the use of mandatory arbitration for summer associates in Big Law. Ian Samuel, a former Harvard Law lecturer and professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, sparked the movement with a tweet in March 2018 revealing that Munger, Tolles & Olson required summer associates to submit to mandatory arbitration agreements. (Samuel resigned from Indiana in May following a university-led misconduct probe, while Munger Tolles quickly did away with the arbitration agreements.) Law students from 50 schools then surveyed large firms and legal organizations about their use of mandatory arbitration for summer associates, but fewer than half of the firms responded.
The project took that work further in the fall of 2018, zeroing in on several large firms that require summer associates, associates or staffers to sign mandatory arbitration agreements. The group called on fellow law students to boycott those firms.
It scored an early victory with Kirkland & Ellis doing away with such agreements, while Sidley Austin followed suit without coming under direct pressure from the organization. Other firms, including DLA Piper and Venable, have not bowed to the student's demands that they end mandatory arbitration.
But the organization also has tackled other issues outside of mandatory arbitration. It helped organize campus protests against Justice Brett Kavanaugh's position as a lecturer at Harvard Law—a job he resigned in October amid the backlash surrounding his U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Additionally, the People's Parity Project in May called on the American Law Institute to reject a controversial restatement of consumer contracts that the students said would diminish the rights of consumers and make it easier for companies to force people into arbitration. (The institute indefinitely postponed the measure after hours of debates during its May meeting.)
And last week, nine law students from six different campuses traveled to Albany to lobby New York lawmakers to pass the EmPIRE Act, a bill that would allow workers to bring qui tam whistleblower suits.
Coleman said the group is also involved in efforts to end sexual harassment and racial discrimination among judicial clerks; increasing information for law students about careers with plaintiff-side law firms; and is looking into future actions around employer noncompete clauses.
The group is also contemplating how to keep its momentum once its founders graduate law school in a year.
“Our goal is that after we graduate we'll have full-time organizers on staff who will continue to work with our student chapters,” Coleman said. “We're also building a strong board of advisers. That group will stay involved. We're really looking at how to build something that will last.”
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