Many law firms are reportedly engaging in what a conservative free-market advocacy group calls “woke lawfare,” using courtroom settlements to impose diversity bureaucracies and racial hiring quotas on American companies.

According to a report from Alliance for Consumers, obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF), multiple legal settlements over the past decade have compelled corporations to adopt gender and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. The group argues these policies harm shareholder value and ultimately consumers.

Alliance for Consumers Executive Director OH Skinner told the DCNF, “These settlements were a serious driver of DEI policies, as they pushed vast sums of money into the DEI machine and empowered or imported DEI activists inside companies. And every settlement put money into the hands of trial lawyers, who used this to roll out more lawsuits.”

The group reviewed eight resolved cases and five ongoing court battles across various sectors including financial, retail, shipping, tech, and government. One example cited is Kaiser’s 2021 agreement to hire an outside consultant to ensure “African American employees’ compensation and opportunities for advancement are fair and equitable.”

Alliance for Consumers described the settlement as reflecting “a broader progressive legal network using employment litigation to institutionalize race-conscious workplace reforms through class action settlements rather than legislation or public rulemaking.”

Skinner urged state legislatures and governors to act promptly: “States should pass laws that shut off lawfare as a lucrative and viable path for trial lawyers and activists in their states. From shutting off public nuisance litigation over lawful, licensed, regulated products, to removing the favored tools of activists and trial lawyers, there is a lot that conservative state legislatures and governors can do to protect their states against lawfare, but they have to act now, before it is too late.”