Employment attorneys Wayne Outten and Justin Swartz. This article originally appeared in Law Journal Newsletters’ Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report, February 2004. For more information, visit www.ljnonline.com.
This article will first discuss reasons that law firms, especially large firms, are susceptible to discrimination suits by their partners. Next, it will explain two threshold requirements for law firm partners to sue their firms for employment discrimination. Both of these requirements turn on whether certain partners are deemed employees. Third, the article will discuss the Supreme Court’s Clackamas decision and lower court decisions that preceded Clackamas but used similar analyses. Finally, it will note that,under some federal and state laws, law firms are vulnerable even if their partners are not deemed employees.Discussion of: reasons law firms may be susceptible to discrimination suits by their partners; two required thresholds for filing such a suit; Supreme Court’s Clackamas decision; and finally a note on why some law firms are vulnerable even if their partners are not deemed employees.
