Among the many student organizations and affinity groups that try to focus on student advocacy and institutional improvements at HLS, one organization is setting its sights on combatting arbitration agreements at law firms and sexual assault reform in the judiciary.
The People’s Parity Project — formerly known as the People’s Pipeline Project — is a relatively new organization, founded just two years ago here at HLS, that has become a voice for some HLS students who end up at large law firms or will be clerks for judges. The PPP, through field organizers such as 2L Beth Feldstein and 2L Andre Manuel, operates through activism, editorials, and conversations to pursue their goals of sparking action and educate their peers.
“Our mission at its core is about finding the ways that the legal profession and the law have profound effects on consumers’ and workers’ lives,” Feldstein said.
The PPP does three main types of work, including advocacy against and for certain law firms, working on local legislation to support organizations in Massachusetts that push companies to end coercive practices, and general public education about the impact of forced arbitration agreements. The PPP has developed to pursue many objectives, but it was originally established in the wake of numerous allegations against senior members in the judiciary.
“One of the reasons PPP was founded was Alex Kozinski,” Feldstein said. “He was a very prominent 9th circuit judge who was essentially exposed as having repeatedly sexually harassed his law clerks for a period of decades.”
Kozinski was among several federal judges who were implicated in sexual harassment claims. The main problem with the allegations in the judiciary however, Feldstein said, is there is a lack of information and reporting. Feldstein said the PPP plans on attempting to address the issue from HLS.
“One of our initiatives for this semester is pushing HLS and other law schools to do a climate survey so that we can find out just what the extent of the problem is,” she said. “We know that harassment in clerkships is something that happens, but people don’t feel comfortable reporting it — there are a lot of retaliation concerns.”
Feldstein said the issue is very relevant at HLS as judges get a large number of their clerks from the law school. The PPP looks at the barriers the reporting system inherently sets up and has been vocal about the importance of change.
Along with sexual assault reform, the PPP is also strongly determined to combat the pervasiveness of arbitration agreements in consumer contracts. Manuel said HLS students have constantly faced arbitration agreements upon entering law firms, so the PPP has strived to combat that.
“The origin of PPP’s work with regards to forced arbitration was exposing that law firms were forcing many of their employees including summer associates who are peers at HLS to sign forced arbitration agreements giving away their right to sue if anything goes wrong,” Manuel said. “In particular, if they face issues like sexual harassment or discrimination at work, they would not have a right to sue their employer.”
The PPP has so far been successful in getting one major firm to drop their arbitration agreement from their employee contracts through a heavy protest campaign. In coordination with other HLS groups, such as Lambda, the organization is still trying to get other law firms to do so as well, Manuel said.
“By exerting pressure, we are able to get a lot of major law firms such as Kirkland & Ellis, which is one of the largest law firms in the world, to drop their forced arbitration clauses from their employment contracts,” he said. “However, there are still some major law firms like Venable, Gibson Dunn, and DLA Piper that use forced arbitration.”
The PPP has been pairing up with multiple law schools across the country to target specific law firms, convincing student groups at HLS to refuse funding from law firms that have arbitration agreements and setting up more events to protest specific firms. The main goal concerning law firms in the future is promoting student activism and educating law firm employees.
“This summer we actually organized a leafleting campaign outside of Venable’s office in D.C. when they were having a recruiting event for rising 2Ls, so we were similarly handing out flyers and trying to engage with people in conversation,” Feldstein said. “We will try to show up at recruiting events or just outside their offices … with flyers that outlined what forced arbitration is [and] why we have our campaign against them.”
In response to a question about why law firms maintain their arbitration clauses in employment contracts, DLA Piper shared a statement explaining why it chooses to include them.
“There are advantages and disadvantages to every type of dispute resolution process,” the statement explained. “It has been our experience as a firm that arbitration is a fair and efficient way to resolve internal disputes, and one that benefits all parties in what are often sensitive matters for everyone involved.” Venable and Gibson Dunn could not be reached for comment.
This upcoming year, the PPP will continue in their efforts to further its aims by expanding across law firms throughout the country. The PPP encourages any and all HLS students to join them in their pursuits by using their voice to advocate for others.
“We are cognizant that as future lawyers, especially Harvard-educated lawyers, we have a lot of privilege,” Feldstein said. “We don’t just want to be advocating for ourselves, we want to be advocating for workers in all segments of the economy.”