Regulation Corporations
Accomplice ran workplace ‘like a poisonous boys membership locker room,’ fired Thompson Hine lawyer alleges
A fired revenue companion at Thompson Hine has filed a gender bias lawsuit in opposition to the legislation agency alleging {that a} former vice chair of litigation dominated the agency’s New York workplace “like a poisonous boys membership locker room.” (Picture from Shutterstock)
Up to date: A fired revenue companion at Thompson Hine has filed a gender bias lawsuit in opposition to the legislation agency alleging {that a} former vice chair of litigation dominated the agency’s New York workplace “like a poisonous boys membership locker room.”
Lawyer Rebecca Brazzano, who had labored because the agency’s professional bono committee chair, filed the pro se suit Feb. 23 in federal court docket in New York Metropolis, Law.com experiences. Thompson Hine and three companions are named as defendants.
The go well with alleges that Thompson Hine “allows rampant and disturbing discriminatory conduct by companions,” together with former New York litigation vice chair Richard De Palma. He’s the companion accused of perpetuating an “previous boys’ community” and “reshaping the cultural panorama right into a warped reflection of his unique locker room imaginative and prescient.”
Defendant Deborah Learn, the outgoing managing companion, is accused of failing to place a cease to the poisonous surroundings. Defendant Thomas Feher, an Ohio companion, is accused of writing a defamatory letter to the Equal Employment Alternative Fee after Brazzano filed a cost of discrimination with the company.
Brazzano was of counsel when she started work on the agency in 2008. She was elevated to revenue companion in 2013, “which is a meaningless title extra akin to an albatross,” the go well with says. She was handled as an worker and had no enter or affect over Thompson Hine choices.
Brazzano left the agency in 2022 after being requested to resign below the pretext that her billable hours had been too low, in response to the go well with. The termination occurred after she initiated a professional bono audit.
De Palma had “vociferously proclaimed his disapproval” of Brazzano’s elevation to revenue companion, and her promotion “paradoxically fueled De Palma’s deep-seated and fervent animosity,” the go well with says.
“De Palma made certain plaintiff didn’t get a single billable hour by way of his intentional effort to exclude plaintiff from any incoming work,” in response to the go well with.
As an alternative, the go well with alleges, De Palma “horded” incoming work or despatched it to male fairness companions. The go well with additionally says he falsely portrayed a damaged-art case as a professional bono effort to advertise his art-law group and had a “risky response” when Brazzano uncovered his “fake professional bono endeavors.”
The “hostile frat boy work surroundings” included De Palma’s “command efficiency litigation conferences [where] he merely recanted tales of his weekend escapades, which had been off matter and off-color,” the go well with says.
The go well with says De Palma additionally bragged about his second marriage to his former affiliate, failed to guard his secretary from his male shoppers’ sexual harassment, kissed “different feminine legal professionals in his entourage ‘hi there’ at agency conferences;” and demanded that Brazzano inform him when she left the workplace.
The go well with says De Palma’s demand for details about Brazzano’s whereabouts was “devoid of any discernible enterprise objective however was solely to make sure and interject his dominance over her skilled interactions.”
When Brazzano attended De Palma’s conferences, he made “snotty feedback,” resembling “good of you to point out up,” the go well with says. Brazzano alleges that she was singled out due to her gender and since she “wouldn’t subordinate herself to De Palma’s misogynistic values.”
In a single assembly with Brazzano, De Palma described a brand new professional bono alternative on the appellate stage and said that “judges know legal professionals who present authorized companies are engaged on a professional bono foundation, and it’s like getting jerked off by a choose,” the go well with says.
“The sexual photographs of De Palma masturbating with a choose had been actually disturbing and disgusting, and that’s the picture that caught with plaintiff,” the go well with says. The thought “was repulsive for apparent causes.”
A Thompson Hine spokesperson advised Regulation.com that the go well with “doesn’t have benefit, and the agency intends to defend totally in opposition to her allegations.”
Regulation.com additionally summarized allegations in Feher’s letter to the EEOC. The letter mentioned the agency was shedding cash on Brazzano as a result of she didn’t originate sufficient work to cowl her compensation for eight years of her nine-year revenue partnership.
De Palma had opposed Brazzano’s promotion as a result of she didn’t spend sufficient time on the workplace, and he had “a protracted monitor report of working properly with feminine attorneys,” Feher’s letter mentioned.
The ABA Journal requested De Palma for remark. He forwarded the Journal’s e mail to a agency spokesperson, who despatched alongside the agency’s assertion that the criticism is with out benefit.
Up to date Feb. 27 at 2:45 p.m. to replicate Richard De Palma’s remark and his legislation agency’s assertion to the ABA Journal.
