This is a continuation of our prior post, Brokeback Lawfirm: An Insider’s View (Part 1), in which a source who worked in the General Practice (i.e., Corporate) group of Sullivan & Cromwell discussed Aaron Charney’s case against S&C, with the benefit of insider knowledge.
If you haven’t already done so, you should read that post before this one. You can access it by clicking here.
After the jump, our S&C tipster shares his thoughts on Aaron Charney’s claims of retaliation.
From our source’s email:
Then there’s the so-called retaliation. Let’s start with the mentoring program. First of all, it’s certainly possible that he was dropped by accident. Assuming he wasn’t, given the work habits I’ve described above, wouldn’t you have second thoughts about choosing Aaron as your representative to impressionable summer associates? Even before he threatens the firm with a multi-million dollar lawsuit?
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Fair enough. But if we take the allegations in Charney’s Complaint as true, it seems unlikely that it was an “accident” (considering that the only mentors from the past year who were dropped were Charney and another fellow who, according to Charney, was on his way out the door).
Then there’s the issue of the performance evaluation. Steve [Kotran] may very well have written him a glowing evaluation. However, just because Steve doesn’t see him as a management problem, there were abundant reasons for the practice group as a whole to see him as a management problem. A performance evaluation in a large practice group is not going to be based solely on the opinion of one partner, especially when there is an underlying problem in that he only works with that one partner.
And I can’t even begin to imagine what planet Aaron’s coming from in accusing John O’Brien of being part of this nefarious plot. As pointed out (a) the practice group was trying to get him to work with new people and (b) he’d complained of anti-gay harassment. So the firm tries to get him to work with someone who is (a) gay, (b) extremely easy to work with, (c) a genuinely nice guy and (d) not the same partner he’d been working for almost exclusively. Nefarious plot or common sense on the part of the firm? To me, it sounds more like the firm trying to salvage something from the situation, without allowing his cozy exclusive relationship to persist.
Okay, we see where our source is coming from. The O’Brien allegation strikes us as one of the weaker claims of retaliation.
Was S&C trying to cover its ass a little by having O’Brien reach out to Charney? Well, maybe in part. But does that amount to “retalation”? We’re not so sure.
All this is before we get to the complaint itself, in which (to quote an earlier commenter) he throws his friends, supporters and innocent colleagues “under the bus.” To this list I would add “clients” — whether or not these deals were already sufficiently publicized, whether or not a law firm’s staffing issues are a client confidence, it is JUST PLAIN WRONG, not to mention completely unnecessary, to embarrass and humiliate your clients by dragging them by name into this mess. These were clients that he worked for and who trusted him, and he betrayed them. This has been technically well expressed in the firm’s recent motion, but I can’t emphasize enough the emotional, visceral since of wrongness that I feel about him dragging the clients into this thing.
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The response that Charney’s lawyers filed to the S&C motion to dismiss was persuasive. But it’s certainly true that Charney could have shown greater care than he did in terms of protecting client confidences, without diluting the force of his allegations.
Finally, without getting into an elaborate defense of S&C, it is hardly the soul-crushing crypt of beige doom that some of the commenters have made it out to be. The workload is daunting, and not everybody you have to work with is pleasant or even particularly humane. But the overwhelming majority of partners are decent, if overworked, ordinary human beings who can often be kind and are (surprisingly sometimes) quite interested in developing associates to be great attorneys. And a few are just amazingly great people on many different levels, and I was fortunate enough to work with a couple of those.
Regards,
Former 28th Floor Associate
We thank Former 28th Floor Associate for taking the time to write us about the case in such detail. This email does a nice job of balancing out some of the prior information we’ve received, which views S&C in a less positive light.
We are open to airing all reasonable points of view on this case. If you have information you’d like to share with us, please email us. Thanks.
Earlier: Brokeback Lawfirm: An Insider’s View (Part 1)