Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell: Lambda LDEF Won’t Touch It With a Ten-Foot Pole
(Because, you know, they have better things to do with their ten-foot poles.)
The New York Observer’s Anna Schneider-Mayerson has penned an interesting article on Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell. Here’s the link.
Random aside: When ATL holds its “Legal Journalist Hotties Contest,” expect Anna Schneider-Mayerson — a Harvard-educated blonde beauty — to give Jan Crawford Greenburg a run for her money.
Much of Schneider-Mayerson’s article will be familiar to regular readers of Above the Law (since we’ve been “covering the crap” out of this case, as promised). But the piece does contain some new information. Like this:
Mr. Charney said he called Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a legal advocacy organization that represents gay clients on civil-rights-related issues, to aid in his case.“I called the hotline, spoke to the representative who answered, and was told I would hear back from them,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Days later they returned my call and informed me that they were not interested in pursuing my matter against S&C.”
(A representative at Lambda contacted by The Observer said it does not comment on these matters.)
The Lambda diss is the juiciest tidbit. But the NYO piece contains a few other highlights, which we reprint after the jump.
The Observer goes into the history of S&C as a firm, as well as a workplace for gay lawyers:
“Sullivan & Cromwell is a distinguished firm with a well-known reserved culture,” said Alisa Levin, a principal at legal recruiter Greene-Levin-Snyder. “I would never go to S&C in anything other than a proper skirt suit, whereas I would go to just about every other firm in edgy dress.”But in a survey of law firms drawn from anonymous interviews and published on the Web site Vault.com, the entry for Sullivan & Cromwell reads, in part: “Regarding acceptance of gays and lesbians, “it’s unfair that Cleary has the gay-friendly rep,” says a contact, “because S&C is undoubtedly at least as supportive.” Sexual orientation is a non-issue, as Sullivan “has many outspokenly gay partners and associates who are fully integrated into the firm’s professional and social life.”
Sullivan & Cromwell is a monster mergers-and-acquisition firm, 125 years old and as blue-blooded and white-shoed as they come.
Its history stretches back to its involvement in the creation of the Edison General Electric Company and U.S. Steel; last year, for the third year in a row, Bloomberg News named the firm the top deal advisor for its role in counseling on $487.9 billion in transactions. Among those deals, S&C represented AT&T in its $83.1 billion buyout of BellSouth, the highest-valued deal in the world in 2006.
The article also goes into Aaron Charney’s background:
Mr. Charney grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., and attended Brown University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He continued his education immediately following that at Columbia University Law School, earning honors as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Sullivan & Cromwell was his first choice of firms; as he puts it, rather worshipfully, “It’s probably the world’s most famous law firm. I felt fortunate to be there.”
(Umm, Aaron, have you forgotten about Cravath?)
Charney comments to the Observer about his current state — paid leave — and his future plans:
“I haven’t thought at all about what happens the day after this ends,” he said. “I’d like to be working at the firm still on my current clients. I didn’t ask to be removed today.”
Interesting stuff. Charney’s relationship with S&C is, to put it mildly, complex.
As we’ve said before, we read the Charney coverage so you don’t have to. Think of us as your Charney v. S&C clipping service.
We’ve set up various news alerts to keep us abreast of developments in Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell. But please don’t be shy about emailing us concerning articles or blog posts that you think might be of interest to us. Thanks.
Sullivan Associate Charges His Firm With Gay-Baiting [New York Observer via WSJ Law Blog]
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I'm puzzled by the NYO article's subhead. What's a "white-shot" law firm?
Given the case at hand, I'm afraid to find out.
Post tidbits from the commments--to many threads, too many comments to read all of them and still do my work. Just keep out the personal attacks, which seem to be spreading in the comments.
I support Charney in all of this, but his quote re: Lambda carries this implication that they, like law firms, were afraid to take on S&C - "days later," he says, as if the delay indicates some foot-dragging on their part. Charney's case, though, is not really an appropriate one for an impact litigation non-profit like Lambda to take based on a call to their intake line. There is nothing special about Charney - he is one of many, many LGBT people who are treated less-than-admirably in the workplace. Good for him for being courageous and suing, but he shouldn't expect an org whose mission is to do groundbreaking civil rights work to help him out. The law in this area is not a frontier. He should have asked them for a referral to a regular, NY, LGBT-friendly employment attorney.
Aaron is a nut. End of story. Period. However, one of the partners he names (korry) is an absolute terror to work with. Every associate knows to stay the hell away from her. (Looking at Aaron’s brief, I do believe the parts about how his buddy tried to avoid being staffed on her deal).) I hope Rodge or Joe reads this and acutally tells her about her well deserved reputaion. And Ms Korry, I hate being your beck and call boy. If you cant haul your ass into the office, and like working so much from home, get somebody else to manage the cars bringing you the papers you need. I hope one of the clients reads this and wonders why the hell you run up so many car trips?
If I were a client, and one of the lawyers working on my case was also in the middle of suing the firm for discrimination, I'd want that guy off of my case.
To all the employment lawyers out there — seems like this guy serially throws his potential allies and friends under the bus. Could he have structured the complaint differently in order to — at this stage of the case — maintain the confidentiality of Kotran, Grinberg & Serota? It seems a bad strategic idea to have your potentiall allies all squashed under the bus and running to cover their tails.
Scary, scary thing, for a lawyer to have to go against his employer, and a grand one at that. Nevertheless, I do have to admire Charney for having the guts to stand up, put his professional reputation at jeopardy, and fight for his perceived injustices. I know law firms can be difficult environments for minorities--- sexual, racial, and otherwise---and I hope that at the very least, this case will force law firms to better gauge the effectiveness of their "diversity programs" and commit to its success. And on top of all of this, I have something else to add. Is Ms. Korry on Rosie's team? Her hair-do is totally Navaratilova. Being gay isn't unnatural--but girl, that hair-do is!
The fact that Lambda declined to take the case says very little about the merits of his case.
First, Lambda handles impact litigation, meaning that they are concerned first and foremost with advancing and creating law, rather than enforcing it. (That's not to say that impact litigation organizations don't do enforcement actions; they do. For example, the ACLU is already doing an enforcement action of NY's relatively new Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act. But the fact that they are doing this reduces the utility of yet another enforcement action consuming the already strained resources of impact litigation organizations.)
Second, like most impact litigation organizations, Lambda turns down something like 99% of the cases that come through their door.
Third, and quite obviously, you don't want to burn bridges with firms that you work with as cooperating counsel.
(Also, no one refers to Lambda has Lambda LDEF -- it's usually referred to as "Lambda" or "Lambda Legal.")
1:54 PM: According to P54 of the Complaint, Korry is married to Wachtell Lipton partner Robin Panovka. So between the two of them, they probably have a cool $3 million to $4 million coming in each year.
Charney doesn't deserve any commendation for "courage." The little bit we know publicly proves it. There are plenty of plaintiffs lawyers who do take employment discrimination cases against white-shoe firms -- I know because I've defended lots of them. And many of those lawyers are respectable and reputable. Charney either couldn't get any of them to represent him or he had no interest in doing so. And the guy worked at S&C and went to Columbia Law, so there's no way he lacks a network of contacts to find a referral.
But that's no so surprising given the way he's handling this. He didn't just file a lawsuit -- he posted it all over the internet, he revealed internal communications that takes shots at a client, he posted the partnership agreement for no apparent legitimate purpose (read the complaint and see), and he asserts things that are injurious to the reputations of people who are not defendants in the case.
This is not courage. It's narcissism.
Amidst the legal arrogance you all pathologically express, the facts of in-house homophobia and hate crimes in all professions is something you're all scared to admit to. Why? Because you all condone them? Seems like you all would've hanged Rosa Parks the same way. Thank goodness that in America the courts determine justice and remedy, not the attorneys (someone please remind the attorneys of this fact).
Amidst the legal arrogance you all pathologically express, the facts of in-house homophobia and hate crimes in all professions is something you're all scared to admit to. Why? Because you all condone them? Seems like you all would've hanged Rosa Parks the same way. Thank goodness that in America the courts determine justice and remedy, not the attorneys (someone please remind the attorneys of this fact).
drucdf ... good for you! The PROFESSIONALS (legal, medical, academic, fire/police) all have in-house unspoken policies that preserve and protect hate-crimes. Arrogance stills justice.