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Diversity

BigLaw firm tones down diversity references on website, citing ‘fluctuating internal and external expectations’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 13, 2025, 10:13 am CST

Updated: K&L Gates has removed references to “diversity” from its website and rebranded its Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Above the Law noted the changes after monitoring BigLaw websites since President Donald Trump took office last month.

According to Above the Law, K&L Gates has removed or changed these references:

  • The link to “Our Commitment to Diversity” on the homepage has been removed.

  • “Diversity and Inclusion” is changed to “Opportunity and Inclusion” on the “About” page.

  • The renamed “Opportunity and Inclusion” page no longer includes diversity percentages for leadership positions.

  • The law firm has removed a sentence reading, “We pledge to follow the Mansfield Rule,” which requires firms seeking certification to commit to certain percentages of diverse candidates for leadership positions.

  • The Diversity and Inclusion Committee has been renamed the Opportunity and Inclusion Committee.

K&L Gates explained the changes in a firmwide email obtained by Above the Law.

The email said K&L Gates is not diminishing its commitment to opportunity and inclusion.

“We are embracing the terminology opportunity and inclusion to more comprehensively express our commitment to fostering a culture that supports and empowers a broad range of individuals with diverse backgrounds and different life experiences,” the email said.

“The website changes are reflective of guidance being received by many clients and others, as entities understandably are taking a hard look at how to preserve their values amid fluctuating internal and external expectations and to ensure they remain compliant with shifting laws and regulations,” the email said.

“To date, the changes on our website have been implemented and led by a cross-section of stakeholders at our firm, including importantly by members of our opportunity and inclusion team. The team is still in the process of making updates to the website—and we can assure you that the feedback we receive will be factored in.”

K&L Gates made similar points in this statement forwarded to the ABA Journal: “Consistent with our long-held values, K&L Gates is committed to advancing opportunity and inclusion across all facets of the firm. Revisions to our website have been implemented and led by a cross-section of stakeholders at our firm, including importantly by members of our Opportunity and Inclusion Committee, and we are and will continue to be in close communication with our entire global team about these changes. Not only do we place great value on our team members’ unique backgrounds, talents and skills, but we also benefit as a firm from the diversity of their lived and learned experiences. We are dedicated to ensuring that every person at K&L Gates feels respected, heard, valued and supported. We have not diminished in any way our long-standing commitment to foster an inclusive, talented team, as we know this enables us to provide the best possible service to our clients and empowers our workforce to thrive.”

Updated Feb. 13 at 11:09 a.m. to include the statement from K&L Gates.

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3. ‘Robot lawyer’ website DoNotPay settles FTC…

Technology

‘Robot lawyer’ website DoNotPay settles FTC claims it couldn’t deliver on promises

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 30, 2024, 10:28 am CDT

A website that billed itself as the “world’s first robot lawyer” has agreed to pay $193,000 to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that it did not live up to its claims.

The DoNotPay website agreed to settle the FTC allegations without admitting or denying them, according to a proposed consent order.

Besides paying $193,000, DoNotPay agreed to refrain from making claims about its ability to substitute for legal services without evidence to support them, the FTC said in a Sept. 25 press release. The company also agreed to provide a notice to consumers who subscribed to the service from 2021 to 2023 about the limitations of its law-related features.

The DoNotPay legal chatbot was founded in 2015 to help people fight traffic tickets, but it later expanded to help people with other legal matters. The company claimed that it could sue for assault without a lawyer, could “generate perfectly valid legal documents,” and could replace the legal industry with artificial intelligence, according to the FTC.

“DoNotPay, however, could not deliver on these promises,” the FTC said in its press release.

According to the FTC complaint, the company didn’t conduct testing to see whether its AI chatbot was producing content that equaled that of a human lawyer. Nor did the company hire or retain lawyers, the complaint said.

The FTC complaint included a quote on the DoNotPay website said to be from the Los Angeles Times: “What this robot lawyer can do is astonishingly similar—if not more—to what human lawyers do.”

The quote actually came from a high school student’s opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times’ High School Insider website, which was a user-generated content platform, according to the FTC.

DoNotPay technologies recognized statistical relationships between words, used chatbot software to converse with users, and used an interface to connect with ChatGPT, according to the FTC.

None of its technologies was trained on a comprehensive database of federal and state laws, regulations and judicial decisions, or on application of the information to fact patterns, the FTC said.

The cost of a consumer subscription varied, but it was $36 every two months at times relevant to the complaint. The company also offered a “Small Business Protection Plan” for $49.99 per month at times relevant to the complaint.

In a concurring Sept. 25 statement, Lina M. Khan, the FTC chair, and Melissa Holyoak, the FTC commissioner, said the settlement “does not suggest that consumers should use expensive professional services, or that companies should avoid offering innovative products that reduce the need for high-priced lawyers. The misdeeds of a few bad apples shouldn’t dampen pro-consumer innovation.”

DoNotPay’s founder, Joshua Browder, is a 2017 ABA Journal Legal Rebel.

Publications that covered the settlement include Above the Law, Law360 and Ars Technica.

A DoNotPay spokesperson told Ars Technica that the company “is pleased to have worked constructively with the FTC to settle this case and fully resolve these issues, without admitting liability.”

“The complaint relates to the usage of a few hundred customers some years ago (out of millions of people), with services that have long been discontinued,” the spokesperson said.

DoNotPay agreed in June to settle a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California claiming that the company “is not actually a robot, a lawyer, nor a law firm.” The plaintiff had said he used DoNotPay to write several legal documents, but he couldn’t use some of them because they were “poorly or inaccurately drafted.”

See also:

Inside the claims against DoNotPay’s Joshua Browder and the ‘World’s First Robot Lawyer’

Judge tosses UPL suit against ‘robot lawyer’ DoNotPay, saying law firm plaintiff was not harmed