Well, this is how progress dies in Biglaw… with governmental posturing and a whole lot of institutional cowardice.
Diversity Lab announced today that it’s pausing the Mansfield certification program, the widely adopted initiative designed to encourage law firms to consider diverse candidates for leadership roles. Thanks to the Trump administration’s latest weaponization of federal agencies, Mansfield certification is effectively being bullied out of existence.
The Federal Trade Commission decided to flex by sending warning letters to 42 Biglaw firms, suggesting that participation in Mansfield certification might violate antitrust laws. Which, to be clear, is not at all how antitrust works. Actual antitrust experts say the program doesn’t run afoul of competition law. But that doesn’t matter when your goal is intimidation, not legal accuracy.
Biglaw, famously brave when billing $2,000 an hour, is apparently far less courageous when asked to stand up to an administration openly hostile to diversity initiatives and perfectly willing to sic the FTC, DOJ, and EEOC on anyone who steps out of line. Rather than fight — for the law, for their own prior commitments, or for diversity itself — firms blinked.
And so the damage landed squarely on Diversity Lab.
“The FTC’s public statement has triggered more than 30 press articles in a single week, and prompted hundreds of concerned emails from clients,” Diversity Lab founder Caren Ulrich Stacy wrote in a letter to clients reported by Law.com. “We’ve retained a senior antitrust lawyer from a top 50 firm with deep FTC experience and are working with them to educate the agency on Mansfield. But I fear the damage is already done.”
Stacy explained that the Trump administration’s scrutiny has led to “many clients” pausing their work with Diversity Lab, which has “substantially depleted” the organization’s operating funds.
“With this dark cloud hovering, many clients are pausing their work with us,” she wrote. “Our operating funds have already been substantially depleted by the need to respond to Executive Orders, DOJ law-firm lawsuits, and EEOC letters to law firms. With little to no near-term revenue to cover expenses, we are concerned about our future.”
One law firm diversity leader summed it up bluntly, “Disappointed, heartbreaking would not be hyperbolic. The organization has been such a long-standing advocate for diversity in the industry.”
And that’s the real takeaway here. Mansfield certification didn’t fall because it was unlawful. It didn’t fall because it failed. It didn’t even fall because the government proved its case (it hasn’t). Mansfield certification fell because Biglaw decided that diversity was not worth the risk of annoying the Trump administration.
Stacy says Diversity Lab will continue to keep clients “posted as we fight this latest effort to dismantle progress.” And this is what dismantling progress looks like in 2026. Regulatory bullying, bad-faith legal theories, and a profession too risk-averse to push back.
It’s a dark day in Biglaw.