Sexism

House Rules: Is Marissa Mayer’s Pregnancy ‘Material Knowledge’?

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Marissa Mayer, the new CEO of Yahoo!, is pregnant. And she took the job knowing she was pregnant. And the board hired her with full knowledge that she is pregnant. Holy hell, what is the world coming to? Read the following:

“She joins a small-but-growing group of women leading major public companies in the U.S., pushing the number to 20 female CEOs out of 500, or 4%. However, she sets a precedent as the first woman to ever take the top position while pregnant. Will having her first baby impact her performance or perception as the strong leader that Yahoo desperately needs?” -Forbes.com, July 17, 2012.

Are you kidding me right now? Let’s play Mad-Libs and change some of the words in that paragraph to “first black woman” and “[w]ill being black impact her performance or perception.” Is the new paragraph more or less offensive? I would argue that both are disgusting….

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Morning Docket: 07.11.12

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Approved method for drinking in public.

* Following yesterday’s hearing, Kleiner Perkins may be able to get a second bite at the proverbial apple after a judge tentatively denied the firm’s bid to arbitrate Ellen Pao’s gender discrimination suit. [The Recorder; Bits / New York Times]

* Ogletree Deakins has allegedly got 99 299 problems, and a b*tch ain’t one billing errors are all of ‘em. Arizona’s Maricopa County wants a refund, and it plans to debar the firm from additional work for the next three years. [ABA Journal]

* Not everything’s bigger in Texas: attorneys for Lance Armstrong have refiled a shorter version of his lawsuit against the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency after suffering a brutal benchslap at the hands of Judge Sam Sparks. [Los Angeles Times]

* Screw your ban on non-lawyer investors, we’ll expand anyway! Jacoby & Meyers merged with Chicago’s Macey Bankruptcy Law to create a 300-attorney adventure in awful lawyer advertising. [National Law Journal]

* The bell has not yet tolled for Florida lawyer Frank Louderback, who will now be able to attend the 32nd Annual Ernest Hemingway Look-alike Contest thanks to his client’s last minute guilty plea. [Tampa Bay Times]

* “I don’t care what the law says, you’re getting a summons.” Sorry, officer, but you don’t mess with a Brooklyn Law student’s booze, because he’ll challenge New York’s open-container law. [City Room / New York Times]

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Lawsuits of the Day: Ewwww. OMG, OMG. Gross.

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On these pages, we cover a fair number of lawsuits relating to female anatomy. Suits about women who say they were fired from their jobs for their stunning beauty (or, depending on your level of cynicism, their other intimidating feminine assets). But we less frequently write about lawsuits stemming from the male anatomy.

Today, we’re making up for lost time. This afternoon we have two stories about men who allegedly have trouble with properly managing their personal packages, thus causing varying degrees of trauma to themselves and people around them.

Are these suits sexy? NO. Are they crazy? Uh, yup. Salacious? Check. And no matter how one discusses these suits, it will sound like an awkward conversation with Tobias Fünke.

So, let’s check out our Lawsuits of the Day. And watch your step…

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Dewey Know A Partner Whose Alleged Actions Led to a $400K ‘Severance Arrangement’?

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Last week, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the American Lawyer all mentioned an unusual debt in the bankruptcy case of Dewey & LeBoeuf. A former D&L associate, Emily Saffitz, was listed as being owed $416,667 — a sum big enough to put her in the top 20 unsecured creditors of the firm. This was apparently due to a “severance arrangement.”

Why did Dewey agree to pay an associate from the class of 2006 more than $400K in severance? According to the Times, Saffitz received this severance agreement after she “complained over how she was treated by a former Dewey partner and told the firm’s management.” According to the Journal, she filed “a complaint regarding sexual discrimination by a Dewey partner who is no longer with the firm.”

Inquiring minds want to know: Who was the partner in question? And what did he allegedly say or do to Emily Saffitz?

Finding out such details is difficult. Settlements in cases of alleged sex discrimination or sexual harassment often contain non-disclosure or non-disparagement provisions that prevent the parties from speaking about what took place.

So we didn’t expect we would ever find out which former Dewey partner triggered complaints from Emily Saffitz. Until, well, he emailed us….

Multiple UPDATES, after the jump.

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High-Profile Sex Discrimination Suit Shines Ugly Light on Silicon Valley ‘Bro Culture’

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Not cool, bro.

Californians tend to be quite protective of the state’s reputation as a progressive paradise. Where equality is important for everyone, no matter your race, gender, sexual orientation, whatever. Where organic food is simply better, no matter how much it costs. Where the earthquakes are a fine price to pay for an entire year of temperate weather.

So, when the New York Times ran an extensive article this weekend about an accomplished female attorney who sued the major venture capital firm where she is a partner for sex discrimination, it puts a real fly in the state’s — and specifically the tech industry’s — collective ointment.

The Times’s extensive story concerns Ellen Pao, a graduate of Harvard Law School and a former associate at Cravath. She has sued Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a major VC firm.

Let’s take a look at the specifics of the suit, as well as what it might mean for attorneys who work within the emerging “brogrammer” culture in Silicon Valley…

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Why Dewey Owe More Than $400K to a Former Associate?
(And a report on Dewey’s day in bankruptcy court.)

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As we reported late on Monday night, Dewey & LeBoeuf has filed for bankruptcy — the largest law firm bankruptcy in U.S. history, in fact. You can access a copy of Dewey’s voluntary petition to enter Chapter 11 over here (via Scribd).

Yesterday afternoon, Dewey’s lawyers appeared in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The firm’s lead lawyer, Albert Togut, introduced himself as follows: “I can finally confirm the worst-kept secret of the year. I am counsel for Dewey & LeBoeuf.” He’s going to be a very busy man over the weeks and months ahead.

Let’s find out what happened at the hearing, and also take a closer look at one of Dewey’s most intriguing unsecured creditors: a (rather attractive) litigatrix, a former Dewey associate now at another firm, who is owed more than $400,000 in “severance” by D&L….

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(And a report on Dewey’s day in bankruptcy court.)”

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Lawsuit of the Day: Yet Another Woman Claims She Was Fired for Being ‘Too Hot’

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You may remember that back in the summer of 2010, an attractive and curvaceous woman named Debrahlee Lorenzana sued Citibank for wrongful termination. Apparently Lorenzana was “too hot” — so hot, in fact, that she allegedly distracted other bankers from doing their jobs, resulting in her firing.

Just two years later, another woman claims that she was fired for similar reasons — her employers at a lingerie business allegedly told her she was “too hot” and that her breasts were “too large.” Now, we know what you must be thinking: how can one be “too hot,” or have breasts “too large” to work for a lingerie company?

Everything’s possible in New York, but we know that TTIWWOP — “This Thread Is Worthless Without Pictures.” We’ve got a few, plus a video….

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Non-Sequiturs: 05.18.12

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* This NYU Law professor’s apparent hypocrisy makes me want to chew on gravel. Seems like he has earned the digital tar and feathering he’s getting. [Inside the Law School Scam]

* So, Facebook went public today. The life of Facebook’s GC is about to change in big, big ways. [Corporate Counsel]

* The city of Boston filed a complaint against an attorney representing local firefighters for his allegedly offensive, sexist behavior at the negotiating table. How do ya like them misogynist apples? [Boston Globe]

* An allegedly intoxicated woman arrested for driving 90 miles an hour in a construction zone justified her speeding by saying she was late to her child’s birthday party. I imagine little Timmy was more upset that his mother not only missed the party but also spent his birthday in the slammer. [Legal Juice]

* Speaking of people you never want to see on the road, a Bay Area attorney was arrested today on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and manslaughter. Police say the attorney, who has two recent, unrelated speeding tickets, is suspected of striking and killing a bicyclist with his brand-new Mercedes. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* An argument as to why the United States, on a policy level, should become more “420 (and other illegal drug) friendly.” Most stoners might argue their case by saying, “Dude, just chill. Just chill bro.” But this is slightly more complex. [Volokh Conspiracy]

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The Latest Plot Twist in Deidre Dare v. Allen & Overy

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Deidre Dare aka Deidre Clark

The high-powered international law firm of Allen & Overy is a member of the Magic Circle. So why can’t they make Deidre Dare disappear?

As longtime readers will recall, Deidre Dare (real name: Deidre Clark) was a Columbia Law School graduate who worked in the Moscow office of Allen & Overy. Everything was going swimmingly, until Clark decided to write some erotic fiction on the side — erotic fiction that may have been based in part on Clark’s experiences working as an expat in Russia. One thing led to another, and Clark’s employment at A&O was terminated.

Clark sued the firm in London, alleging her firing was improper; that suit was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. She then sued in New York, making claims for sexual harassment, sexual discrimination, wrongful termination, and retaliation, among other claims.

When we interviewed her last year, Clark (a member of the New York bar) sounded confident about her chances of success in the Big Apple: “I think NY will take jurisdiction. And thank God for that.”

So, was Clark correct? Will her suit be moving forward in New York?

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Arguably The Best Use Of Sexism And Unethical Behavior Ever

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New course offering at Miami area law schools.

Many of you will be outraged by this story, and many more of you will pretend to be outraged by this story if it comes up in front of your wife or girlfriend. And the story is outrageous. It’s sexist and clearly unethical.

But… doesn’t hiring strippers to pose as paralegals and then sending them into jail to “service” your defendants / clients sound like the most natural business strategy in the world? Supply, meet some serious demand.

Hey, rich corporate clients get this treatment all the time. I don’t just mean that figuratively. I’m sure that there have been lawyers who literally brought their clients to a strip club after they closed the deal on their representation. We all know that firms put the prettiest secretaries on the floors clients see, while the floors with associates who share offices are staffed by hagravens. T&A has been used to secure clients probably since we moved out of the state of nature.

Lawyers in the great city of Miami are just taking this natural service and extending to to criminal defendants. What’s so wrong with that?

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