In a motion to dismiss the “Jane Doe” lawsuit filed last June, Proskauer argued that Bertram does not have standing to bring a suit under federal employment discrimination laws, which generally protect employees but not business owners. ![]() “We are proud of Proskauer's transparent and equitable compensation system that resulted in both the Plaintiff earning enormous sums for her contributions, and female partners earning about 94 percent of male partners before considering factors like specialty or experience.” “We are confident that it will become evident through discovery that her claims are baseless,” the statement said. The firm declined to make Leccese or other members of its leadership available for an interview, but a spokeswoman issued a statement saying that Bertram’s lawsuit was a compensation dispute between business owners, and was not about gender. Bertram declined a request for an interview. via YouTubeīertram’s attorney, David Sanford, of the firm Sanford Heisler Sharp, said his client decided to reveal her identity because she would not be allowed to remain a “Jane Doe” during a public trial, and because there have been rumors circulating about her identity. Attorney Connie Bertram appears in a 2013 video posted to YouTube celebrating winners of the 2013 Washington SmartCEO Power Players Awards. When Bertram complained to the firm’s general counsel about the comments the litigator made to her and to summer associate candidates, the firm took no action to stop the harassment, she charged in the suit. The chairman of Proskauer, Joseph Leccese, often described her as “elegant” and “glamorous,” and a prominent securities litigator in the Washington office “made inappropriate comments regarding her appearance, body, clothing, or ‘sexiness,’” she said in the suit. When she complained about her pay inequity, she was subjected to hostility by her superiors at the firm, which led to hypertension and anxiety.Īnd she said she was also subject to objectifying and lascivious comments. Though she ranked sixth among the firm’s more than 180 equity partners for billable hours from 2014 to 2016, she ranked 32nd in compensation at the end of 2016, the suit says.īertram said in her complaint that, as a single mother, she was berated when one of her children had an emergency and she had to step down as the lead lawyer in a trial. ![]() ![]() 42, 48 (1984)).In the suit, Bertram, who joined Proskauer in 2013, charges that the firm paid her millions of dollars less a year than male partners who are similarly or less productive than she is. Recently, a federal court found that the shortening of time for this important statute to be against public policy. This is a dangerous injustice for employees who don’t remember having signed or who never read the small print and rely on bringing a claim within the normal time allowed. Some courts have upheld the shortening of the time by an agreement signed by the employee. ![]() An example is FedEx’s “employment agreement” requiring that any lawsuit an employee brings for a violation of the law by FedEx must be brought within six months.Ī suit based on race discrimination under our country’s oldest civil rights act, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, allows a suit to be brought within four years of the violation. Some employers will bury dangerous language in the small print of documents an employee is required to sign at the start of a job.
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