These are unfortunate times for so-called Big Law firms as they balance their rock-solid commitment to diversity and inclusion with the Donald Trump size 12s pressing heavily on their necks.

Whatever they do will result in negative media coverage, showing up when potential clients do a Google News search on the firm name. Such a fate awaited magic circle outfit Freshfields when reports emerged this week that references to diversity in its promotional material had been quietly dropped.

But as luck would have it, the firm had some good news to upload to its website (1 April is a traditional day for partner announcements). Dozens of partner profiles appear to have been refreshed by Freshfields in the past few days, flooding the firm’s Google News page and relegating any other story to at least page nine.

Such frenzied activity is not confined to Freshfields. The media team at White & Case – another grappling with its diversity issues – has published more than a dozen in-house news stories in the past three days, pushing any other news stories way down the Google News rankings.

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