Davis Polk associate says he was fired after refusing to stop publishing columns on legal issues

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Davis Polk affiliate says he was fired after refusing to cease publishing columns on authorized points

By Debra Cassens Weiss

July 17, 2025, 11:56 am CDT

Up to date: A Davis Polk affiliate says he was fired 4 hours after presenting the regulation agency with a column he meant to publish on the Trump administration’s capability to trace protesters.

Ryan W. Powers says he wrote the column on June 12, the day after he was advised his earlier newspaper columns on authorized points violated an inside coverage on the regulation agency. The coverage apparently gave the regulation agency broad discretion to dam worker speech on subjects it considered as related to its pursuits, he says.

Many giant regulation corporations have insurance policies just like Davis Polk’s, based on employment lawyer Jonathan Pollard of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “A lot of regulation corporations gained’t publicly speak about their content material creation or publishing polices—as a result of they know that’s a nasty look,” he tells the ABA Journal in an electronic mail. “However it’s widespread.”

Based on College of Virginia College of Regulation professor J.H. (Rip) Verkerke, it’s “normal observe” for regulation corporations to bar workers from making unauthorized public feedback about shoppers or the subject material of any representations. Some could even prohibit speech that would hurt the pursuits of the agency or its repute.

“I imagine, nonetheless, that it’s fairly uncommon for a agency to interpret these insurance policies and retained rights as a license to fireplace an affiliate for any political speech of which they disapprove,” says Verkerke, who teaches employment regulation, in an electronic mail. “Based mostly on the knowledge that’s publicly out there, maybe the probably motivation for the agency’s motion was a need to keep away from offending the Trump administration.”

Powers defined what occurred in a Substack article and a podcast known as the Parnas Perspective. Bloomberg Regulation and Law360 have protection.

Powers began writing columns for native newspapers after the Trump administration cracked down on the authorized career with govt orders concentrating on disfavored regulation corporations and strain on bar associations to vary insurance policies.

“So, I began writing—by myself time, fully exterior of labor,” Powers wrote. “If the regulation was changing into tougher to belief, I figured it ought to at the very least be simpler to grasp.”

When he was warned in regards to the regulation agency’s publishing coverage, Powers wrote, “No rationalization was given—solely that one thing had been flagged, and I used to be anticipated to cease. I refused.”

Powers obtained the warning after writing one other column on privateness points. It involved the risks of unchecked federal surveillance and the way corporations like Palantir Applied sciences had constructed instruments that may very well be used to profile and monitor Individuals. Two weeks later, the New York Instances reported that at the very least 4 federal companies have been utilizing a Palantir product that would enable the Trump administration to merge their info, elevating issues that the federal government would compile a grasp checklist of non-public info.

Davis Polk had represented the monetary advisers to Palantir in an preliminary public providing.

Powers despatched the column he meant to publish to 3 regulation agency leaders in an electronic mail reviewed by Law360. He wrote that if the regulation agency rejected his request to publish, he would really like a written rationalization of the rationale.

“As a substitute of any reply,” he advised the Parnas Perspective, “I obtained a knock on my door about 4 hours after the article was despatched to them.” He was fired instantly and given only some minutes to pack his private belongings.

Powers views the Davis Polk publishing coverage as ambiguous. Punishing speech with no clear rationalization preserves energy and silences attorneys who’re “the primary line of protection in a constitutional disaster,” he writes.

In his interview with the Parnas Perspective, Powers stated the regulation agency’s publishing coverage is “morally weak and poorly justified.” He believes enforcement of the coverage “compromises the integrity of the establishment and each lawyer in it.”

“This isn’t nearly one agency,” Powers wrote in his Substack article. “It’s about BigLaw: an business more and more beholden to energy, the place employers are quietly deciding what their attorneys are allowed to say—not simply within the workplace, however of their lives past it. When sharing authorized data is handled as an issue and silence turns into the expectation, the hazard isn’t simply to attorneys who communicate up. It’s to the rule of regulation itself.”

Powers, a Harvard regulation graduate, was a tax affiliate who was employed at Davis Polk in October 2023.

Davis Polk is declining to remark, a spokesperson advised the ABA Journal.

Story up to date on July 17 at 1 p.m. to incorporate remark from Pollard. Story up to date at 3:10 a.m. on July 18 to incorporate remark from Verkerke.

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