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“Every witness brought here is on James Dolan’s payroll,” Vladeck said.
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Title VII's Protection Against Retaliation
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Sexual Harassment Verdicts & Settlements
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“Every witness brought here is on James Dolan’s payroll,” Vladeck said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/sports/basketball/03garden-cnd.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
“Every witness brought here is on James Dolan’s payroll,” Vladeck said.
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“Every witness brought here is on James Dolan’s payroll,” Vladeck said.
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“Every witness brought here is on James Dolan’s payroll,” Vladeck said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/sports/basketball/03garden-cnd.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
“Every witness brought here is on James Dolan’s payroll,” Vladeck said.
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Bloggers' FAQ - Online Defamation Law
The Bloggers' FAQ on Online Defamation Law provides an overview of defamation (libel) law, including a discussion of the constitutional and statutory privileges that may protect you.
What is defamation?Generally, defamation is a false and unprivileged statement of fact that is harmful to someone's reputation, and published "with fault," meaning as a result of negligence or malice. State laws often define defamation in specific ways. Libel is a written defamation; slander is a spoken defamation.What are the elements of a defamation claim?
The elements that must be proved to establish defamation are:Is truth a defense to defamation claims?
- a publication to one other than the person defamed;
- a false statement of fact;
- that is understood as
a. being of and concerning the plaintiff; and
b. tending to harm the reputation of plaintiff.- If the plaintiff is a public figure, he or she must also prove actual malice.
Yes. Truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim. But keep in mind that the truth may be difficult and expensive to prove.Can my opinion be defamatory?
No — but merely labeling a statement as your "opinion" does not make it so. Courts look at whether a reasonable reader or listener could understand the statement as asserting a statement of verifiable fact. (A verifiable fact is one capable of being proven true or false.) This is determined in light of the context of the statement. A few courts have said that statements made in the context of an Internet bulletin board or chat room are highly likely to be opinions or hyperbole, but they do look at the remark in context to see if it's likely to be seen as a true, even if controversial, opinion ("I really hate George Lucas' new movie") rather than an assertion of fact dressed up as an opinion ("It's my opinion that Trinity is the hacker who broke into the IRS database").
http://w2.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-defamation.php
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Jury Awards $11.6 Million to Former Knicks Executive
A jury ruled today that Isiah Thomas, the coach of the New York Knicks, sexually harassed a former team executive and that Madison Square Garden, the owner of the team, improperly fired her for complaining about the unwanted advances.
The jury, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, also ruled that the former executive, Anucha Browne Sanders, is entitled to $11.6 million in punitive damages from the Garden and James L. Dolan, the chairman of Cablevision, the parent company of the Garden and the Knicks.
Of that figure, $6 million was awarded because of the hostile work environment Mr. Thomas was found to have created, and $5.6 million because Ms. Browne Sanders was fired for complaining about it. Mr. Dolan’s share is $3 million; the Garden is liable for the rest.
The judge will decide later on compensatory damages, covering actual economic harm suffered by Ms. Browne Sanders, like back pay and benefits.
The jurors were not able to decide whether Ms. Browne Sanders should be paid damages by Mr. Thomas, so on that matter, the judge ruled a mistrial, a partial victory for the coach.
After the hearing, Mr. Thomas emerged from the courtroom and addressed the throng of media that has followed the case, which presented an unsavory behind-the-scenes view of the team.
“I want to say it as loud as I possibly can,” Mr. Thomas said. “I am innocent. I’m very innocent. I did not do the things that she accused me in the courtroom of doing.
“I am extremely disappointed that the jury did not see the facts in this case,” he said, patting his chest for emphasis. “I will appeal this.”
Officials from the Garden issued a statement after the verdicts.
“We believe that the jury’s decision was incorrect and plan to vigorously appeal the verdict,” the statement said. “We look forward to presenting our arguments to an appeals court and believe they will agree that no sexual harassment took place and that Madison Square Garden acted properly.
“The normal operations of M.S.G. and the New York Knicks will continue unabated, and we will have no further comments until the appeals process has concluded.”
After the punitive damages were announced, Ms. Browne Sanders appeared outside the courtroom and said the decision was important not just for herself, but also for “the women who don’t have the means and couldn’t possibly have done what I was able to do” and for “everybody that cares about working in a civil work environment.”
Today’s verdicts are the latest embarrassment for the Knicks, who have floundered in recent years. The team has had six head coaches since 2001, has only made the playoffs once in that time, and has signed numerous expensive players who have flopped.
During the trial, testimony by witnesses made the inner workings of the Garden appear dysfunctional, hostile and lewd. The Knick’s star guard, Stephon Marbury, testified that he had sex with a team intern in his truck after a group outing to a strip club in 2005.
Late Monday afternoon, the jury passed a note to United States District Court Judge Gerard E. Lynch, saying they had decided on eight of the points, but could not reach agreement on the final point — whether Mr. Thomas should pay damages to Ms. Browne Sanders.
Shortly before 5 p.m. on Monday Judge Lynch called the jury into the courtroom, thanked them for their work, and asked them to return for one more day to try and come to a unanimous decision on the charge.
This morning, however, the jury of four women and three men said they were still split on that question, so the judge declared a mistrial on that issue.
Ms. Browne Sanders, 44, was fired in February 2006 from her position as the Knicks’ vice president for marketing and business operations, a job that paid her $260,000 a year.
As in many sexual harassment legal cases, this one become something of a he-said, she-said, with the two versions of events widely divergent.
She contended that Mr. Thomas, 46, subjected her to hostility and sexual advances starting in 2004, after he arrived as president, and that the firing was in retaliation for her sexual harassment complaint. The Garden countered that Ms. Browne Sanders was fired for incompetence and for interfering with the investigation of her sexual harassment complaint.
In closing statements, Ms. Browne Sanders’s lawyer described his client as a victim of Thomas’ ”sexually charged behavior” and of a lie concocted by Mr. Dolan that she tampered with the investigation into her claims of sexual-harassment.
“Dolan made up a reason, and everyone at the Garden had to scramble to justify the reason,” said Anne C. Vladeck, the lead lawyer for Ms. Browne Sanders.
Ronald M. Green, the lawyer for Mr. Dolan and the Garden, characterized Ms. Browne Sanders as being increasingly desperate to keep her job. He said that when Mr. Thomas was hired, Ms. Browne Sanders was disappointed that she was not promoted to running the business sides of the Knicks, the Rangers and the Liberty, the lawyer said.
”This is not about sexual harassment,” Mr. Green said.
Instead, he said, it was about money.
Her lawyer said Mr. Thomas created a hostile environment critical to proving a sexual-harassment claim. She questioned the motivation of executives who testified for Thomas and the Garden.
“Every witness brought here is on James Dolan’s payroll,” Vladeck said.
The jury had to reach unanimous verdicts that on whether Mr. Thomas, who is also the Knicks’ president for basketball operations, sexually harassed Ms. Browne Sanders, and if Mr. Dolan violated federal law by firing her in retaliation for filing her claims. In the end, they apparently believed Ms. Browne Sanders’s version of events.
An earlier version of this article misstated the location of a 2005 sexual encounter between Stephon Marbury of the Knicks and a team intern. Mr. Marbury testified that it took place in his truck, not in the trunk of his car.
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http://www.titleix.info/content.jsp?content_KEY=189&t=math_science.dwt
Women receive 47% of bachelor's degrees in mathematics and 40% of
bachelor's degrees in physical sciences; however, women are awarded
only 25% of doctorate degrees in each of these areas.
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Supreme Court First: A Female Special Master
Tony Mauro
Legal Times
January 16, 2008
The Supreme Court on Tuesday quietly helped shatter a glass ceiling many may not have known existed by appointing the first female special master in the Supreme Court's history. She's Kristin Linsley Myles of San Francisco, litigation partner in the firm Munger, Tolles & Olson and a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia.
Myles could not be reached for comment.
Myles was named special master in the case of South Carolina v. North Carolina, which comes to the Court under its original jurisdiction. That little-known category of cases involves disputes between states, in which the dispute goes to the Supreme Court first, not last, and without the fact-finding or review of any lower court. As a result, the Court appoints a special master to review facts, hear testimony and report to the Court with recommendations, which the justices accept, reject or modify. The Court has been naming special masters since 1791.
It's an important but not high-profile job that used to go primarily to retired or senior federal judges. But with more senior judges taking on heavy caseloads in their former courts, the high court has turned to private attorneys or law professors -- all male, until Tuesday. A 2002 University of Minnesota Law Review article on the role of the special master, entitled "Lurking in the Shadow of the Judicial Process," took the Court to task for the dearth of women or minorities in the ranks of special masters. (The late former Solicitor General Wade McCree is the only African-American special master in history, according to the article.)
South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster filed the complaint that is now before the Court, describing it as a "water war" on his Web site. He asserts that North Carolina is taking more than its fair share of water from the Catawba River, which begins in North Carolina and flows into South Carolina. The river, says McMaster, is essential to economic development, recreation and hydroelectric power in his state.
First reported in The BLT: The Blog of Legal Timesreal live headliner tax frauds here: Fraud &Tax Scofflaws: "Tangled Skein of Criminal Tax Fraud"
International ambition drives as US top 50 rakes in $40bn in 2006
The US’ top 50 law firms have posted their fourth successive year of double-digit increases in revenue and partner profits, yet still look set to lag behind their key European rivals in terms of growth this year.
Legal Week’s annual table of the top 50 US
firms, the first comprehensive financial picture of the world’s biggest
legal market in 2006, shows top 50 firms grew income by an average of
12.2% in 2006, while profits per equity partner (PEP) rose 11.4%.
The figures are slightly up on 2005, when the group managed an average turnover increase of 11.5% and a PEP rise of 10.5%. Overall, the top 50 generated more than $40bn (£20bn) in fees during 2006, while the average top 50 firm posted a PEP figure of $1.57m (£790,000).
Internationally-committed firms were among the strongest performers, with Dechert, Jones Day and Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson experiencing the strongest profits growth.
Fried Frank managing partner Valerie Ford Jacob told Legal Week: “For firms that have been advising in the corporate arena, it has been very international in its nature this year, while litigation and bankruptcy have been slower.”
Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Ellis Gates chairman Peter Kallis commented: “Major US firms are faced with a stark decision. We must align our business model with major clients and potential clients — an international focus with global reach — or face the consequences.”
Domestically-focused firms were hampered by a slowdown in New York securities listings, a drop in top-tier commercial litigation and a series of salary wars over the 12-month period, which have all hit profit growth.
However, US M&A was robust, with overall activity rising in value by 26.3% to $1.607trn (£808bn) according to Mergermarket, thanks in part to a record-breaking run of private equity-backed bids. In volume terms, the total number of M&A deals in 2006 rose by 8.8% to 5,379.
Regionally, New York firms were generally outpaced by national rivals in terms of both revenue and profits growth. Firms based in Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia-based Dechert and Pittsburgh-based Reed Smith, saw the biggest growth in both turnover and profits.
Texas-based firms also performed strongly with a 14.5% rise in PEP and a 10.7% rise in turnover on average.
Twelve US firms now boast PEP figures of more than $2m (£1m), with Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz — the world’s most profitable law firm — managing $3.9m (£2m). None of the top 50 saw a drop in either turnover or PEP.
The results also demonstrate the depth of the US legal market. The 50th-ranked firm, Chicago’s Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, would be placed 10th in revenue terms in the UK’s top 50 league.
However, growth rates look set to pale in comparison to those at the top UK firms, which are preparing for a bumper rise in turnover following a busy year of cross-border transactions in Europe. UK firms also managed a stronger rise than US firms in the last financial year, when the UK top 50 firms’ turnover rose by 13.1% and PEP rose by 19%.
The entire magic circle currently looks likely to achieve at least £1m PEP when the financial year finishes at the end of this month — a result which, if realised, would be further bolstered by the current strength of sterling against the dollar.
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The top 10 in gross revenue: 1. Skadden - $2.20 billion; 2. Baker & McKenzie - $2.19b; 3. Latham - $1.92b; 4. Jones Day - $1.54b; 5. Sidley Austin - $1.49 b; 6. White & Case - $1.47b; 7. Kirkland - $1.4b; 8. Mayer Brown - $1.29b; 9. Weil Gotshal - $1.23b; 10. Greenberg Traurig - $1.20b.
The top 10 in profits-per-partner: 1. Wachtell - $4.01 million; 2. Quinn Emanuel - $3.34m; 3. Boies Schiller - $3.07m; 4. Sullivan & Cromwell - $2.94m; 5. Paul Weiss - $2.67m; 6. Cravath - $2.52m; 7. Simpson Thacher - $2.48m; 8. Kirkland - $2.47m; 9. Cleary - $2.4m; Schulte Roth - $2.29m.
The top 10 in revenue-per-lawyer: 1. Wachtell - $2.46 million; 2. Sullivan & Cromwell - $1.48m; 3. Cravath - $1.21m; 3. (tie) Davis Polk - $1.21m; 5. Debevoise - $1.205m; 6. Boies Schiller - $1.18m; 7. Simpson Thacher - $1.13m; 8. Quinn Emanuel - $1.105m; 8. (tie) Skadden - $1.105m; 10. Milbank Tweed - $1.07m; 10. (tie) Paul Weiss - $1.07m.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/04/29/the-amlaw-100-firms-partying-like-its-1991/
Vault 2008
1 - 20
21 - 40
| 2008 RANK | LAW FIRM | PRESTIGE SCORE | 2007 RANK | LARGEST OFFICE/ HEADQUARTERS |
| 1 | Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz | 8.780 | 1 | New York, NY |
| 2 | Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP | 8.732 | 2 | New York, NY |
| 3 | Sullivan & Cromwell LLP | 8.224 | 3 | New York, NY |
| 4 | Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates | 8.197 | 4 | New York, NY |
| 5 | Davis Polk & Wardwell | 8.126 | 5 | New York, NY |
| 6 | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP | 8.116 | 6 | New York, NY |
| 7 | Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton LLP | 7.759 | 7 | New York, NY |
| 8 | Latham & Watkins LLP | 7.712 | 8 | Los Angeles, CA |
| 9 | Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP | 7.672 | 9 | New York, NY |
| 10 | Covington & Burling LLP | 7.510 | 11 | Washington, DC |
| 11 | Kirkland & Ellis LLP | 7.492 | 10 | Chicago, IL |
| 12 | Debevoise & Plimpton LLP | 7.468 | 13 | New York, NY |
| 13 | Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP | 7.444 | 12 | New York, NY |
| 14 | Shearman & Sterling LLP | 7.240 | 15 | New York, NY |
| 15 | Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP | 7.237 | 14 | Washington, DC |
| 16 | Williams & Connolly LLP | 7.234 | 17 | Washington, DC |
| 17 | Sidley Austin LLP | 7.232 | 16 | Chicago, IL |
| 18 | Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP | 7.158 | 18 | Los Angeles, CA |
| 19 | O'Melveny & Myers LLP | 7.105 | 20 | Los Angeles, CA |
| 20 | White & Case LLP | 7.092 | 21 | New York, NY |
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real live headliner tax frauds here: Fraud &Tax Scofflaws
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a. Risk of Retaliation
An employer cannot establish that an employee unreasonably failed to use its complaint procedure if that employee reasonably feared retaliation. Surveys have shown that employees who are subjected to harassment frequently do not complain to management due to fear of retaliation.87 To assure employees that such a fear is unwarranted, the employer must clearly communicate and enforce a policy that no employee will be retaliated against for complaining of harassment.
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Unequal under law: women lawyers still scarce in upper ranks.
Defense lawyer Madelynn Kopple recalls the time a judge in Torrance Municipal court removed her from a case.
The offense: wearing a pantsuit.
It was 1975, and the idea of women in the courtroom - let alone the big law firm's boardroom - was still resisted in many quarters. Kopple, who at the time was a public defender, said the judge replaced her with a private attorney - a man - who was wearing a sportcoat and turtleneck.
"(The judge) said, 'Why are you here and not in the kitchen where you belong?'" Kopple said.
Kopple and other women lawyers say such blatant signs of sexism have all but disappeared. But vestiges of gender bias gender bias n. unequal treatment in employment opportunity (such as promotion, pay, benefits and privileges), and expectations due to attitudes based on the sex of an employee or group of employees. Gender bias can be a legitimate basis for a lawsuit under anti-discrimination statutes. linger on, they say, which can be seen in the fact that far fewer women than men attain management positions in law firms or win appointments to the bench.
"Women represent about half of the law students in the U.S. and half of the initial hires in law firms," said Professor Richard Abel of the UCLA School of Law. "But ... we know that women have not become partners at a proportional rate. Their numbers are diminished at every level of influence."
Among the 50 largest law firms in Los. Angeles County, only six have female managing partners, according to a Business Journal survey. And though there are nearly 300 judges on the Superior Court bench in L.A. County, less than 40 of the jurists are women.
Lawyers, legal scholars and others offer a variety of reasons to explain the continuing disparities between male and female lawyers, including:
* A "boy's club" atmosphere. While women are no longer excluded from private clubs, many men in the profession still feel more comfortable promoting younger versions of themselves.
* Family ties. Law firms - particularly large ones - require lawyers to put in long hours if they want to advance, forcing many women who want children to put the brakes on their careers.
* Lack of experience. Law schools did not graduate women in large numbers until the 1970s and early 1980s, meaning that many are just now gaining the experience level necessary to attain partnership or management positions.
In addition, the strides women began making in the '80s were undercut by the recession of the early '90s, which led many law firms to trim their staffs and cut down on new hires.
"Women were the first to go in the layoffs," said Laurie Levenson, associate dean of Loyola Law School. "Firms could do it on a standard of who had the least seniority, which made women the natural target."
Shirley Hufstedler, a 48-year veteran of the legal profession and former secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, agreed that the recession hit women lawyers especially hard.
"It's easiest to center on those that are relatively new to the profession," she said. "In this case, it was usually the women."
But Hufstedler also believes that the lingering prejudice against women is one reason that women have yet to reach parity in the legal profession.
"It is very difficult to change the attitudes that still linger on in the older generations in the profession, since so many gender biases are ingrained at early ages," she said. "However, I've noticed that as the daughters of lawyers reach professional schools and begin their own careers, perceptions and attitudes change. The same attitudes that were applied to spouses and contemporaries no longer apply to the next generation, whom the fathers perceive as extensions of themselves."
As attitudes continue to evolve, problems do remain, but they usually don't make front-page headlines. Attorney Gloria Allred said outright lawsuits charging sex discrimination against law firms are extremely rare. She could recall only one such suit - and it was filed back in the early 1980s.
"The fear of being labeled as a troublemaker may be the reason why relatively few complaints have been filed," said Allred, founder of Los Angeles-based Allred, Maroko & Goldberg said. "Most of these types of issues are settled very quietly."
But Allred and other women lawyers maintain that sexism is far from dead, and that it persists in a host of ways.
"I have been called 'darling,' but sexism is usually more subtle," said Gigi Gordon, a criminal defense lawyer in practice for herself in Santa Monica. "What I see most often is when there is a multiple-lawyer case, judges will tend to turn to a male lawyer, even if a female is the head lawyer."
And the stereotype that the best lawyers are aggressively outspoken - and consequently male - lingers on as well.
"There's still a perception women are not as smart, aren't aggressive enough and won't be there in a pinch to handle the client's problem," said Laura Christa, a managing partner at the Century City-based Christa & Jackson.
"Even sophisticated clients still feel that those who make the most noise make the best lawyers," agreed Gordon. "The loudest are usually men."
At the same time. many believe that biases against women lawyers are diminishing.
"I don't see client resistance (toward a female lawyer) for the most part. and if we do see it, we don't tolerate it," said Robert Long, managing partner at Latham & Watkins. "As we see more women in business making decisions and as corporate climates change, any such bias is decreasing."
Levenson, however, believes that because the leaders of corporate America are largely male, they will tend to give their business to other men. "Until women get the clients, we won't get respect," she said.
That means women may have to work even harder to be a rainmaker - a prerequisite to becoming a partner.
"Law firms are a profit-making business," said William Warren, professor emeritus and former dean of UCLA's law school. "Women become part of the network when a woman shows that she can bring clients in. (Networking) is success-specific rather than gender-specific."
Paul Irvine, a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, agrees, but said that an old-boys network does remain to a small extent when it comes to attracting clients.
"There is no question about there still being an old boys network," Gordon said. "There are still socializing over sports events, and while more women may be playing golf, men don't think to include women in the invitation."
Kopple, the criminal defense lawyer, said groups of judges and trial lawyers frequently set up social events. "It's rare women get invited," she said.
Mona D. Miller recalls that when she was at her first law firm, the women would get together periodically for potluck dinners, which were "refreshing" and helped them stay in the information loop.
"The men were very threatened by this," Miller said. "We'd always get a lot of comments. They were piqued. They didn't see why we needed to do this. They played basketball every Saturday and unless a woman was a varsity player, she wasn't welcome."
But many say that the days of male lawyers excluding their female counterparts are history.
"There probably is an old-boys network in some quarters, but its effectiveness is greatly diminished," Long said. "There are a lot of networks in the form of various legal associations, and women are well represented there."
"It's a cliche that existed at some time in the past and which has become irrelevant," said Charles Bender, chairman of the management committee at O'Melveny & Myers. "Networking primarily depends on the type of practice you're in."
While there is a gender line represented in the perception of an old-boys network, no such division is apparent when lawyers talk about the challenges women have in balancing work and family. Family pressures were the most common reason given for why women are not proportionally represented at the partner level - or why women are choosing not to compete for a partner position.
"We recently were talking about a female partner who left several years ago to have children," Long said. "When her kids got older, she got involved in other activities. We realized that we should have done more to attract this woman back into our firm."
Lawyers who are mothers deal with the double duty in different ways. Hufstedler had her child while in a private practice, then opened a litigation consulting business she ran from home when raising her son. When working in the U.S. attorney's office, Levenson was in court until an hour and half before giving birth to her first child. She said that when she moved into academia, one attraction was the flexibility that the work offered.
But the atmosphere in large firms is less flexible, making it even more difficult for women to balance motherhood pressures.
"If women take time off to be with their families, it is almost guaranteed that they will not become partners," Allred said.
There are exceptions. Most of the major law firms in L.A. do have female partners who have children. But they are the minority, and firms are aware of the large attrition rate of women because of family demands.
O'Melveny & Meyers' Bender said his firm is aware of the difficulties their women face when raising families while maintaining a strenuous law practice. In order to help accommodate these women, the firm - like many others - offers a reduced work schedule. However, Bender also acknowledged that by choosing this schedule, the women are essentially choosing not to be on a partner track.
Several industry members commented that they don't understand why this choice continues to be mutually exclusive.
"Firms can do more to keep women with children in the power structure," UCLA's Abel said. "They can create a partnership track that is not full-time, or create a full-time structure that also allows for family structures. There is no productive reason why an associate should work 80 hours a week. It's just a rite of passage."
Allred sees the slowly growing number of men taking more active roles in childrearing as the most hopeful means for the legal culture to become more accommodating toward lawyers trying to fit in family obligations.
"The major factor to help things change is if men take more time for family," Allred said. "We've seen some of this, but not in significant numbers yet."
What everyone seems to agree on is that it is in the firms' best interest to continue making the legal culture more hospitable to women.
"The issue of why women are underrepresented at the partner level is an interesting question that we look at with regularity," said Latham & Watkins' Long. "Whatever the exact reason, from an institutional point of view, we don't want to lose the talent that we helped train."
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