Law Firm Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart Facing Gender Discrimination Class Action

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. is facing a proposed class and collective action filed by an attorney and non-equity shareholder who claims that the law firm discriminates against female shareholders with regard to wages, promotions and other work-related opportunities.

The suit, which has been transferred into California’s Northern District, describes the defense-side labor and employment firm, which employs 700 attorneys nationwide, as an “old boys’ club” that maintains “strong barrier[s] to women’s advancement” within the company. According to the case, the defendant’s inequality is most evident in its hierarchy, with a disproportionate amount of men holding important positions at the firm. The case notes, for example, that the firm’s compensation committee responsible for pay decisions is 80 percent male. Moreover, as the lawsuit tells it, men at the firm are often the biggest beneficiaries of work performed by women. From the complaint:

“Male shareholders are disproportionately over-represented at every level of the Firm’s management and leadership structure. Through formal policies and widespread practices, the Firm’s male leadership interferes with, limits, or prevents female shareholders from receiving the appropriate credit for the business they bring to the Firm and their hard work in running complex and demanding cases day-to-day. All the while, their male colleagues reap the professional and financial profits that women generate.”

When it comes to career opportunities, the case alleges the defendant “refuses to promote qualified female non-equity shareholders to equity shareholder status, even when they generate business that meets or exceeds the criteria and expectations for equity shareholders.” What’s more, for a woman to be promoted to shareholder level at the firm, she must be recommended by Ogletree’s nearly all-male board of directors and then receive 75 percent of equity shareholders’ votes. Further, the suit asserts that women at the firm are held to different performance standards and are promoted less often and at slower rates than their male counterparts. The plaintiff attests that male colleagues whom she outperformed were paid as much as three times more than her and that she was unfairly denied raises by the compensation committee.

The 45-page complaint goes on to allege that the defendant inappropriately assigns female attorneys “housekeeping duties,” such as event planning and office management tasks, while allowing male attorneys to focus on case work. And these allegations say nothing of the lawsuit’s claims with regard to case assignments, credit allocation and the actual legal work performed by female shareholders, of which the plaintiff says proposed class members perform almost exclusively without receiving commensurate credit.

In response to the plaintiff’s discrimination complaints, which she’s supposedly voiced since 2012, the law firm, according to the suit, routinely refused to fund her business initiatives and rejected expense requests without cause, despite funding and supporting her male peers “without hesitation.”