Each month, Jake Schogger (ex-Magic Circle lawyer and founder of Commercial Law Academy) and Peter Watson (ex-stock broker, head hunter and founder of Watson's Daily) host a free webinar summarising the key current affairs and trends from the previous month, including insights from a business, markets and legal perspective.  

To register for future sessions, check out https://citycareerseries.clickmeeting.com

This blog post covers topical legal current affairs from March 2025, including Trump's threats to law firms operating in the US, and the EU AI Act.  

Please note that these articles do not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon. They simply reflect the author's research and opinion.

Trump actions against US law firms

Trump signed an executive order to block law firm Perkins Coie from working with the US government because it had acted against him in the past, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts made a rare statement to push back on Trump’s attack on American judges (Trump said one of them should be impeached) The week started with the chairman of major US law firm Paul Weiss doing a deal with Trump after it became subject to an executive order that the former said “could easily have destroyed our firm”. This followed censure of Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling but although Paul Weiss’s chairman was criticised for not standing up to Trump, no other firms were willing to side with him so he had to do a deal where his firm would have to provide $10m worth of legal services pro bono on an annual basis for the next four years.

Trump then went on to attack Jenner & Black and rounded off the week with targeting WilmerHale. Trump seems to be working his way down a list of targets that he believes wronged him in the past.

HOW DOES THIS AFFECT UK OUTPOSTS OF THESE US FIRMS?

For background, President Trump has recently targeted dozens of top global law firms in the US over DEI- related employment practices.

It seems this includes practices involving firms taking positive action to promote more diverse workforces, for example through classifying and recruiting job candidates based on race, sex and other protected characteristics. It is alleged that such actions violate the US Civil Rights Act, which offers no exceptions to such actions on diversity grounds.

Trump is also trying to require firms to identify all clients with diversity requirements or preferences for employees staffed on their matters, suggesting law firms could be punished for representing clients who stick to their inclusivity policies. Clients will also likely be concerned that they might be penalised in the future for engaging law firms that stick to their own inclusivity policies.

In response, an open letter has been written – and signed by over 1,700 associates from the largest firms operating in the US (including the US offices of large UK headquartered law firms) – condemning these actions, but law firms seem hesitant to publicly condemn what has happened, given the fear of retribution. And such retribution has been actioned already to a degree.

For example, Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie, Paul Weiss, and Jenner & Block were recently subjects of executive orders signed by Trump which sought to isolate the firms from contact with or working for the federal government.

According to the Guardian, these orders have threatened to revoke the security clearances of the firms’ lawyers, meaning they will not be able to access government buildings, as well as force clients who do business with the government to disclose if they are represented by the firms. As a result, a number of clients have apparently either fired the firms, or threatened to do so.

Trump also issued a separate executive order directing the US attorney general to investigate lawyers who take actions to block the administration’s priorities, whilst the administration has since written to 20 more practices requesting information about DE&I practices.

At the moment, it seems Trump is predominantly (if not unanimously) targeting firms that have – as put by The Law Society Gazette – been “inimical to his cause” (meaning hostile).

For example, the three firms just mentioned have, between them, represented Hilary Clinton, worked on a prosecution relating to the Capitol Hill riots, represented a special counsel who brought criminal charges against Trump, and represented a prosecutor who worked on the investigation into Trump’s connections with Russia.

How could this all affect the UK? Well, Lewis Silkin points out that “shifts in the US often impact employers in the UK, both directly (because they are in scope of federal contracting) or indirectly, as US practice influences practice here”. 

However, the firm then reflected that changes in the US will not necessarily impact UK DEI initiatives in particular, because:

• We have our own laws strictly governing the boundaries of DEI initiatives;
• Those laws differ from those in the US, and already tend to operate more restrictively compared to what we’ve seen in the US; and
• Accordingly, a redrawing/redefining of US legal boundaries is therefore likely to bring US law closer to the UK position.  

In any event, a UK office of a law firm that already operates in the US cannot simply comply with whatever Trump requires, as they then risk being in breach of UK law.

This Lewis Silkin article is great if you’re looking for more detail on the differences between US and UK law in this context.

BCLP has publicly reinforced that equal access to opportunity and maintaining an inclusive culture are at the core of the firms values, and that the firm will remain true to its commitment that firm values remain a top priority.

A total of 18 law organisations, including the Law Society of England and Wales, have also issued a joint statement urging the US government to rescind the executive orders and immediately halt all acts of intimidation, hindrance or harassment of legal professionals.

However, only time will tell whether the majority of large law firms with US offerings will make a public stand.

Sources / further research

• https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/trump-attacks-global-law-firms-as-top-uk-names-face-dei-probe
• https://docs.google.com/document/d/18ojmZhk6XmYM_gQJhl1KAhDecdcerly9EvmxJu8A5rI/edit?_ga=2.35539425.1320051975.1743427750-920787505.1743427750&tab=t.0
• https://www.lewissilkin.com/insights/2025/01/27/president-trumps-dei-orders-what-do-they-mean-for-uk-employers
• https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news-focus/analysis-elite-us-firms-attacked-by-trump-face-a-dilemma/5122751.article
• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/trump-executive-orders-law-firms

EU AI ACT

The European Commission is looking at making more of the AI Act voluntary rather than compulsory despite criticism that this could blunt its protections and faced criticism for watering down the rules. WHAT ARE THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE AI ACT AS IT STANDS AND HOW COULD BIG TECH BE AFFECTED?

The EU AI Act is – according to White & Case - the first comprehensive horizontal legal framework for the regulation of AI systems across the EU.

It aims to govern "the development, the placing on the market, the putting into service, and the use of artificial intelligence systems" in the EU.

So what does it cover? To give a high level summary…

The EU AI Act bans certain AI practices across the EU, which it considers harmful, abusive and in contradiction with EU values. This includes using purposefully manipulative or deceptive techniques to materially distort human behaviour.

It also imposes certain additional obligations relating to high risk AI systems  - for example those used as a safety component of a product, and those deployed in specific areas such as law enforcement, migration, and education – as well as certain general purpose AI models which are trained using a large volume of data and capable of perming a wide range of tasks.

These obligations include requirements to notify the commission if certain circumstances arise, as well as to make available and maintain certain information around training, testing, and technical data.

In addition, those who use AI systems to create deep fakes are required to clearly disclose that the content has been artificially created or manipulated by labelling the AI output as such and disclosing its artificial origin (unless the use is authorised by law).

Subject to limited exceptions, non-compliance could apparently be met with a maximum financial penalty of up to EUR 35 million or 7 percent of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher.

Sources / further research

• https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/long-awaited-eu-ai-act-becomes-law-after-publication-eus-official-journal