Lesbians

CHECK YOU FIRM NAME: Quinn Emanuel Adds Kathleen Sullivan to the Stationery

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An ATL favorite, Quinn Emanuel, is making a change to its firm name. From the Quinn press release:

John B. Quinn announced today that the firm he and Eric Emanuel founded 25 years ago will change its name, and henceforth be known as Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP. The decision to add Kathleen M. Sullivan as a name partner was made in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the firm and the profession. Sullivan is a partner in the firm’s New York City office and heads the firm’s national appellate practice.

Congratulations to former Stanford Law School dean Sullivan.

Of course, now that she’s a name partner, we are eagerly awaiting for the ATL community to honor Kathleen Sullivan with her own meme. John Quinn doesn’t use capital letters. Bill Urquhart … really likes capital letters. We can’t wait to see what Sullivan comes up with.

Read the full press release, plus an UPDATE with some observations from Lat, after the jump.

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Julie Kamps Files $50 Million Lawsuit Against Fried Frank for Making Her Life Hell (But Never Making Her Partner)

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Fried Frank Julie Kamps.jpgJulie Kamps graduated from Harvard Law School in 1998 and moved to New York to work for Fried Frank. She spent 10 years as a litigation associate at the firm and was let go in January 2009.
Anyone who spends ten years at a firm without making partner might be tempted to sue. In Kamps’s case, she alleges that Fried Frank discriminated against her because she is a lesbian, that she was sexually harassed by two partners — male and female — and that false promises of impending partnership were made to her over the last four years.
Kamps previously filed an EEOC complaint, describing herself as an “openly lesbian, non-gender-conforming female.” Now she’s suing the firm for $50 million, plus interest, plus attorneys’ fees, plus reinstatement as an associate at the firm, plus promotion to partner. She appears to be representing herself (just like Aaron Charney, who initially proceeded pro se when he sued Sullivan & Cromwell).
Though she apparently wants to return to the firm, she does not hold back in ripping the firm a new one. She describes Fried Frank as misogynistic, anti-minority, tolerant of female-on-female sexual harassment, and, worst of all, partnership teases. After reading through her lawsuit, we wonder why she would want to go back to a firm that she tears to shreds in her complaint.
We were distracted from this wondering, though, by the loud ripping sounds. Hell hath no fury like a lesbian tenth-year associate scorned. We’ve got excerpts and the full complaint available for your perusal, after the jump.

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Girl-on-Girl Sexual Harassment at Delaware Law Firm

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Lesbian harassment law firm girl on girl.JPGHere at Above the Law, we’ve reviewed a lot of employment discrimination complaints over the years. But this one is special.

The firm (like it matters):
Maron Marvel Bradley & Anderson.

The plaintiff:
Jennifer Braude.

Why you care:

Do I have your attention? Click after the jump for more details, plus Maron Marvel’s response.

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Biglaw Is Good to Gays

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Human Rights Campaign HRC gay rights Above the Law blog.jpgLet’s give credit where credit is due. The Human Rights Campaign has released its annual Best Places to Work list. It shows that law firms are great when it comes to creating a non-discriminatory environment for gays and lesbians. The ABA Journal reports:

In 2006, the first year law firms were included in the Human Rights Campaign survey, 12 got a perfect rating of 100 percent [on the Corporate Equality Index]. This year an unprecedented 88 law firms got perfect ratings, “eclipsing every other industry represented on the index,” according to a press release. The group evaluated 127 law firms in all; 124 of them were among the nation’s largest 200 law firms.

Our industry deserves a large pat on the back. In a time of massive layoffs, it is great that law firms are still committed to equality when it comes to sexual orientation.

Check out the list of firms that are good for gays here (PDF).

Top Law Firms for Equality – 2010 [Human Rights Campaign]
Law Firms Outshine Other Companies in Ranking by Gay Rights Group [ABA Journal]

Earlier: Which Law Firms Are Down With the Gays?

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Same-Sex Marriage Legal Troubles in Massachusetts

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turkey baster.jpgWe’ve covered the legislative twists and turns of same-sex marriage fairly closely here at ATL. But there was one notable court case we missed back in March.
We thought Dr. Li-Ann Thio’s description of anal sex as “shoving a straw up your nose to drink” was graphic, but this article by the Register on attempted same-sex female marital rape is even more explicit:

A Massachusetts woman has appeared in court on a domestic assault and battery rap after allegedly attempting to impregnate her wife with a plastic syringe containing her brother’s sperm.
Stephanie K Lighten, 26, of Pittsfield, was reportedly “all liquored up” when she made unwelcome advances towards her other half, 33-year-old Jennifer Lighten. Jennifer explained to officers that Stephanie “had been talking about trying to impregnate her for some time”, and that she’d accordingly armed herself with a “turkey baster and her brother’s semen in a sealed container”.

According to Lez Get Real, there were no rape charges per Jennifer’s request, just a domestic assault and battery charge.
Apparently these lovebirds were able to put the turkey baster incident behind them. We checked in with the Central Berkshire District Court and found out the case was dismissed in April.
US woman attacks missus with sperm-filled syringe [Register]

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 5.24: Food for Thought

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champagne glasses small.jpgBefore we discuss this week’s finalists, here’s a peek at some of the weddings we can’t feature due to space constraints: a former Kirkland & Ellis partner marrying the youngest-looking 62-year-old we’ve ever seen, the creator of the Anonymous Lawyer blog marrying an anonymous doctor, and a Rhodes Scholar marrying an ordinary person.
The fact these couples couldn’t make the cut should tell you a little something about the quality of the field as we near the summit of the wedding season. Here are the three lucky couples who’ve reached the finals this week:

1. Kate Adamick and Kay Diaz
2. Sabrina Charles and Jamie Dycus
3. Jessica Chilson and Franklin Reece

Read more about these newlyweds, after the jump.

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Morning Docket 5.08.09

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scotus crop.jpg* There has been plenty off talk about potential Supreme Court nominees, but how about the conservative groups gearing up to oppose them? [The Washington Post]
* Two highly qualified lesbians, Virginia Linder and Kathleen Sullivan, are apparently on Obama’s Supreme Court short list. [ABC News]
* The ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Jeff Sessions, says that an openly gay Supreme Court nominee should be treated fairly “regardless of what kind of persuasion they may have.” [Fox News]
* Meanwhile Specter has lost his seniority on the Senate Judiciary Committee and will become the chairman of the subcommittee on crime and drugs. “What we don’t want is an angry former Republican during a Supreme Court hearing,” said a Democratic staffer. [Washington Post]
* Police continue to investigate mysteries surrounding the death of Robert Wone, a Washington lawyer who was murdered in 2006. [The Blog of Legal Times]
* Did you know there was an elite “Public Integrity Section” in the Department of Justice tasked with probing corruption charges of public officials? [The New York Times]

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Lesbianic Lip-Lock LLP?

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The OC girl girls lesbian kiss above the law.jpgBig news in from Minnesota. Remember the story of the female summer associates who got drunk and started making out last year at a firm event? We covered it in our end-of-the-year Biglaw Gossip In Review post. In that post, we wondered:

What happened to our fearless heroines after summer was over? We don’t know their fates. We reached out to them by email, but they did not respond to our queries. Did they land new jobs? It’s not clear.

It has become clearer. Apparently, the two 3Ls were among the many heading into life-after-law-school without job offers. So, like these University of Missouri-Kansas City grads, they’re going entrepreneurial and launching their own firm.

Will they be able to capitalize on their Above The Law fame? How are they getting their start-up cash? And more importantly, are they hiring?

More details, after the jump.

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Top Biglaw Stories of 2008: #4 and #3 (Gossip)

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ATL 2008 in review.jpgNow that we’re a few days into 2009, we’re going to pick up the pace in our 2008 round-up posts. Some of you are getting impatient. Complained a commenter: “At this rate, we’re going to get to #1s sometime in June.”

So, onward. We previously wrote about the #5 gossip story in Biglaw. Today we’re going to hit two birds with one stone, announcing the #4 and #3 stories in law firm land (on the gossipy side; the hard news / business stories are on a separate list).

Although they’re not in the top two, these tales were in some respects the most fun for us to cover. Take a trip down memory lane, after the jump.

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OutLaws: A Discussion With Out Lawyers (Part 1)

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pink gavel gay lesbian bisexual transgender lawyer attorney.jpgLast week, we attended OutLaws: A Discussion With Out Lawyers, held at the LGBT Community Center here in New York. The event featured “out lawyers sharing different perspectives and stories — how they got to where they are professionally, as well as what went right, what didn’t, how they’d approach things differently today, and the specific challenges they faced as an LGBT person.”

The panel was moderated by Lisa Linsky, a litigation partner at McDermott Will & Emery. She was joined by Michael Colosi, general counsel for Kenneth Cole; Phylliss Delgreco, associate general counsel and senior vice president at Citigroup; and Roberta Kaplan, a litigation partner at Paul Weiss.

The freewheeling discussion was quite enlightening. You can read about it after the jump.

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