Did A Biglaw Partner Get Fired For Supporting LGBT Causes?

What really happened when this partner left his firm?

onFebruary 8, 2016 at 11:46 AM

Alfred Zaher

Whenever a partner abruptly leaves a firm, there is a story there. Now most of the time we never hear the details, but sometimes we strike gold. According to a lawsuit filed last week, a former Blank Rome intellectual property partner, Alfred Zaher, claims he was terminated by the firm for hosting an event for LGBT lawyers. As Law360 reports:

Alfred W. Zaher claimed he was abruptly terminated after Chairman and Managing Partner Alan J. Hoffman allegedly expressed disapproval of Zaher’s staging of a meeting of 70 LGBT Philadelphia attorneys at Blank Rome’s offices.

Blank Rome allegedly said it fired Zaher because he had “lost the confidence of his partners,” according to the suit. But Zaher on Wednesday said the claim was pretextual and that the firing was motivated by Hoffman’s alleged personal animus toward Zaher.

Sponsored

Navigating Financial Success by Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Maximizing Firm Performance

In this CLE-eligible webinar, we’ll explore the most common accounting pitfalls and how to avoid them for your firm.

From Pilot and Above The Law

Seems like a strong reaction to using a conference room. But perhaps there was some bad blood between the two partners. The lawsuit also claims that Alan Hoffman made comments about Zaher’s appearance and mannerism during meetings.

The complaint does more than just air Zaher’s grievances against Hoffman, as he claims there was some shady stuff going down over his book of business. According to the lawsuit, when Zaher was leaving the firm the IP group’s chair, Timothy Pecsenye, took an associate and visited Zaher’s clients, saying Zaher was leaving the firm due to “ethical issues.”

As one might imagine, Blank Rome intends to defend itself against these allegations, as it explained to Law360:

“For more than 70 years, Blank Rome has been committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse work environment,” the firm said. “We are proud of the distinction we received under Alan Hoffman’s leadership and support for achieving a perfect score of 100 percent on the 2016 Corporate Equality Index in recognition of our policies and practices related to LGBT workplace equality.”