Vivia Chen is an attorney and longtime legal industry columnist who currently writes under the Substack “The Ex-Careerist”. She is known for her insightful observations of Big Law and access to those who know the industry inside and out. She was an opinion columnist for Bloomberg as well as The American Lawyer, where at the latter she had a 20-year run.
Chen recently came out with a piece titled “We Should Be Ashamed,” which examined the legally questionable but economically viable threats the Trump administration put on Covington & Burling for representing former Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Legal Speak’s Patrick Smith sat down with Chen to discuss the rule of law and Big Law’s role in it, both from a business and moral perspective. Chen outlined what the Big Law community should be doing as pushback to this behavior. And more importantly, Chen and Smith discuss what isn’t being done.