Don't Let Law Firms Hide Harassment and Discrimination

We are law students who are deeply concerned that many law firms require their employees to sign forced arbitration agreements with non-disclosure provisions as a condition of employment. In advance of the National Association for Law Placement (“NALP”) annual conference next month, we write to request that NALP include two questions on the NALP directory for on-campus recruitment that will help students identify these firms.

In March 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, reports emerged that several prominent law firms were requiring summer associates to sign forced arbitration agreements. These agreements required summer associates to arbitrate all employment-related claims, waiving their right to sue to vindicate their workplace rights, including those that arise under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. These contracts also contained nondisclosure agreements that prohibited signatories from disclosing the “fact or content” of the arbitration proceeding, including the very existence of the proceeding. After this news broke, several law firms announced that they will no longer require at least some employees to sign these coercive contracts, and that they would retroactively rescind the arbitration provisions in prior contracts. We are heartened by these changes, but not all firms have followed suit. We remain concerned that some firms are still forcing their employees to sign away important protections, as a condition for accepting a job—and that some applicants may not know they will be subject to a forced arbitration clause until after they accept an offer.