Biglaw

DLA Piper Says Sexual Assault Accuser 'Orchestrated' Relationship With Former Partner

The firm has a lot of thought about the allegations.

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Vanina Guerrero

When a Biglaw firm is embroiled in a scandal involving sexual assault allegations, you kinda expect there to be a he said / she said tussle in public. But I’m not sure we expected the wild back and forth that’s gone down in the DLA Piper case that has been rocking the Biglaw world this month.

For those who may not be fluent in all the details, earlier this month, DLA Piper partner Vanina Guerrero released an open letter to the firm, and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that the co-managing partner of the Silicon Valley office, Louis Lehot, repeatedly sexually assaulted her after she’d been recruited to the firm in 2018. She asked the firm to release her from their mandatory arbitration agreement so she can pursue her claims in court. The firm has been conspicuously silent on the forced arbitration agreement — despite the attention their arbitration stance in this case has garnered, but, they did announce that Lehot had been let go from the firm. But the firm also put Guerrero on administrative leave, saying they’d uncovered allegations against her unrelated to Lehot during their investigation of her claims. Lehot released a statement contesting the allegations against him and saying Guerrero was “exploiting” the #MeToo movement. Then a second woman, an anonymous HR manager, came forward with her own allegations against Lehot, saying he made her “physically afraid,” and further alleging the firm let her go when she complained about Lehot. Then a third women, Leah Christensen, came forward with her own stories of Lehot’s bullying and name calling.

Now, in a newly filed 122-page response to the EEOC, DLA Piper alleges Guerrero “orchestrated” her relationship with Lehot to further her career:

Ms. Guerrero’s own emails show that she was not subject to abuse or assault by Mr. Lehot. In fact, dozens of emails and messages show that Ms. Guerrero was a willing participant in a lengthy emotional flirtation with Mr. Lehot that she orchestrated to advance her career.

As noted by Law.com, DLA Piper’s filing — penned by their attorneys at Gibson Dunn — included a stream of consciousness email Guerrero sent to herself using her DLA account. The email contains ruminations on her relationship with Lehot, containing thoughts like: “Louis: This man will help me / Control him: friendship w/o anything.” And: “Cannelize [sic] the energy – get me to where I need professionally,” and “Don’t open up to him / Leverage it for me…” The firm’s response also calls attention to what Guerrero didn’t say:

The Gibson Dunn attorneys note that the email, which is published in full, includes a number of other candid statements about her professional goals and references to her sexuality, and it does not describe Lehot as “abusive, bullying, or controlling”—in contrast to her EEOC claims.

As further evidence of what it characterizes as Guerrero’s duplicity, the Gibson Dunn team representing DLA Piper pointed to her omission of a March 2019 trip she took with Lehot to Machu Picchu from her EEOC charge and her other public statements.

The trip came after the fourth and final allegation of sexual assault, during which Guerrero claimed she made it clear to Lehot that she would never be in an “intimate relationship” with him, allegedly prompting Lehot to threaten her job, position at the firm and compensation, telling her “their working relationship would never be the same.”

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The firm also counters the allegation Guerrero was retaliated against, saying Lehot and Guerrero disagreed over the optimal place to spend firm resources and the deal she was pulled off of was allegedly at the request of the client.

DLA Piper’s response also took aim at Leah Christensen, the ethics counsel who came forward in support of Guerrero’s claims. The firm says as Christensen was based in another office than Lehot, she wouldn’t know about Lehot’s alleged behavior. Additionally, given Christensen’s role at the firm, DLA Piper says her statements violated ethics rules:

“Christensen’s letter to this Commission, as well as her public statements, are in direct violation of her duty of confidentiality and her duty of loyalty, among other ethical and tortious transgressions,” the letter said.

Unsurprisingly, Guerrero’s attorney, Jeanne Christensen of Wigdor LLP, had something to say about the filing:

“DLA Piper, a global law firm, has managed to reach a new low in the how to smear women that speak out about sexual assault playbook—a low that even Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly and Matt Lauer did not reach.”

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We will be following all the latest in this case as it develops.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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