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Associate ran workplace ‘like a poisonous boys membership locker room,’ fired Thompson Hine lawyer alleges
A fired earnings associate 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 earnings associate 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 reviews. Thompson Hine and three companions are named as defendants.
The swimsuit alleges that Thompson Hine “permits rampant and disturbing discriminatory conduct by companions,” together with former New York litigation vice chair Richard De Palma. He’s the associate 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 associate, is accused of failing to place a cease to the poisonous atmosphere. Defendant Thomas Feher, an Ohio associate, 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 earnings associate in 2013, “which is a meaningless title extra akin to an albatross,” the swimsuit 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 underneath the pretext that her billable hours have been too low, based on the swimsuit. The termination occurred after she initiated a professional bono audit.
De Palma had “vociferously proclaimed his disapproval” of Brazzano’s elevation to earnings associate, and her promotion “paradoxically fueled De Palma’s deep-seated and fervent animosity,” the swimsuit says.
“De Palma made positive plaintiff didn’t get a single billable hour by his intentional effort to exclude plaintiff from any incoming work,” based on the swimsuit.
As a substitute, the swimsuit alleges, De Palma “horded” incoming work or despatched it to male fairness companions. The swimsuit additionally says he falsely portrayed a damaged-art case as a professional bono effort to advertise his art-law group and had a “unstable response” when Brazzano uncovered his “fake professional bono endeavors.”
The “hostile frat boy work atmosphere” included De Palma’s “command efficiency litigation conferences [where] he merely recanted tales of his weekend escapades, which have been off matter and off-color,” the swimsuit says.
The swimsuit 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 ‘whats up’ at agency conferences;” and demanded that Brazzano inform him when she left the workplace.
The swimsuit says De Palma’s demand for details about Brazzano’s whereabouts was “devoid of any discernible enterprise goal 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,” corresponding to “good of you to indicate up,” the swimsuit 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 providers are engaged on a professional bono foundation, and it’s like getting jerked off by a choose,” the swimsuit says.
“The sexual photos of De Palma masturbating with a choose have been really disturbing and disgusting, and that’s the picture that caught with plaintiff,” the swimsuit says. The thought “was repulsive for apparent causes.”
A Thompson Hine spokesperson instructed Regulation.com that the swimsuit “doesn’t have advantage, 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 stated the agency was dropping cash on Brazzano as a result of she didn’t originate sufficient work to cowl her compensation for eight years of her nine-year earnings 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 observe report of working properly with feminine attorneys,” Feher’s letter stated.
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 grievance is with out advantage.
Up to date Feb. 27 at 2:45 p.m. to mirror Richard De Palma’s remark and his legislation agency’s assertion to the ABA Journal.
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