Professor James Brudney was quoted in a Bloomberg Law column, which examined the behavior of major law firms in relation to COVID-19 vaccinations. The article also mentioned alumnus Eric Grossman ‘93, the chief legal officer at Morgan Stanley.
So far, only a dozen or so major [law]firms have publicly declared that vaccinations are required for those setting foot in the office. It started slowly—with Davis Wright Tremaine taking the lead, followed later by Paul Weiss. It’s only in recent days that other firms joined in. Currently, the list also includes Arent Fox; Clifford Chance; Cooley; Davis Polk; Fenwick & West; Fried Frank; Hogan Lovells; Lowenstein Sandler; Mintz Levin; Reed Smith; and Weil Gotshal. And now that big-name companies are hopping on the vaccine bandwagon—including mighty Morgan Stanley whose legal chieftain Eric Grossman recently commanded his outside counsel to return to the office—more firms will likely join. That said, what a pathetic list so far!
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“There’s no legal impediment for mandating vaccines,” says James Brudney, a labor and employment professor at Fordham Law School, citing recent rulings involving Houston Methodist Hospital and Indiana University that overcame employee challenges to vaccine requirements.
If there’s no legal impediment, why don’t firms get on the stick? “Well, they’re law firms,” says Brudney. “There could be concerns about respect for privacy and administrative costs to tracking compliance and managing exemption requests. Law firms are also concerned about claims for discrimination on religious or medical grounds.”
All things considered, law firms prefer a “soft mandate,” explains Brudney, in which unvaccinated employees are required to take at least a weekly Covid test.
