In shades of a famous U.S. Supreme Court case, a female attorney Monday sued a prominent Chicago law firm, alleging sex discrimination in not being made a partner.
The lawsuit filed by H. Elizabeth Kelley, 33, against 50-lawyer Wilson & McIlvaine, a firm with a silk-stocking reputation, is believed to be the first of its kind here.
Kelley, a University of Virginia Law School graduate, came to Chicago in 1979, worked at the Katten Muchin firm, then joined Wilson & McIlvaine, once the ”society” firm in town. Past and current clients include Marshall Field & Co., Arthur Andersen & Co. and William Blair & Co. Over the years, however, the shrinking firm has generally been seen as losing luster.
Kelley started work June 22, 1981. On Jan. 7, 1985, she was told she wouldn`t make partner. On Aug. 30, 1985, she left the firm. She filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Three months ago, the commission notified her that, because of a backlog, it couldn`t pass on the merits but gave her what`s known as a ”right to sue” letter, enabling her to file Monday`s action in federal court.
The attorney, who is married to a Cook County assistant public defender, alleges she was a victim of sex discrimination in being denied prestige corporate work, not being allowed to concentrate in one area of the law, being forced to do paralegal-like work, receiving a salary not comparable with those of male associates at the firm, being denied a partnership and then not being given recommendations as she went job hunting. Kelley, represented by Marilyn Longwell, is unemployed.
The fact that Chicago`s law firms have been male bastions is no big secret. In 1965, the 20 largest law firms had a total of five women partners and 350 male partners, according to Joan Hall, a Jenner & Block partner since 1972 and the American Bar Association`s honcho when it comes to evaluating candidates for federal judgeships in this area. By 1983, according to a study by Hall, the 20 largest firms had 1,200 partners of whom 43 were women. Still, she contended Monday that ”women have made substantial progress.”
”I`m sure there are isolated instances of discrimination, but overall the picture has gradually improved. One does see more women as partners, on management committees and (in) other positions of real influence.”
A female partner at another big firm, who asked that her name not be used, maintained that ”the issue of discrimination against women attorneys is one that`s largely in the closet.” There`s substantial discrimination, she said, especially in admission to partnerships and control of clients. ”Yes, there are more women entering the law firms, but what happens once they enter?” she said. ”Are they on the same escalator as the men? You look at the big firms and you can count on one hand the women in top partners`
positions.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that a law firm can be found guilty of unlawful sex bias for refusing to name a woman as a partner. It was a victory for Elizabeth Hishon, who was suing Atlanta`s King & Spalding. The two sides ultimately settled out of court, with the terms not disclosed.
A discrimination flap is not new to Wilson & McIlvaine, whose only female partner, Carol Kipperman, left the firm last year for the city corporation counsel`s office. In 1983, then associate Molly Warner and partner John Lien returned from their honeymoon to learn the firm would not allow them both to remain. In what some said was baloney, firm bigwigs claimed a pre-existing policy forbidding married couples from working there.
Warner left; her husband remained. She is teaching at the University of Chicago Law School but declined to comment Monday on her situation or on Kelley`s. Still, at least partial sympathy was voiced by one former attorney who knows the firm quite well and claims to have known Kelley`s work well.
That attorney maintained that there may have been justifiable grounds not to make Kelley a partner, saying she was not a hard-charging ”self-starter” and ”just didn`t strike one as all that motivated.” At the same time, the former firm lawyer said, ”Women were not treated equally. Yes, I think several women were discriminated against and that the general attitude toward women was deplorable.”
The law firm forwarded calls to its attorney, John McDonald of Keck Mahin & Kate. He could not be reached.
CONFLICT ISSUE NOT SIMPLE FOR SIMONS
The law firm of Jenner & Block, which recently hired away from Friedman & Koven the hotshot son of Illinois Supreme Court Justice Seymour Simon, is asking the high court to suspend rules that require a judge to disqualify himself from a case in which a blood relative has ”an interest.”
The motion was filed in the case of Luis Garcia, who`s challenging the death sentence received for a 1980 robbery and shooting spree on Chicago`s Northwest Side in which four people were killed. The firm represents Garcia for free and says that if Seymour Simon, a strong opponent of the death penalty, can`t take part in the case, Garcia may have to seek other counsel and the firm`s representation in other indigent criminal cases may be affected.
The office of Cook County State`s Atty. Richard Daley, which obviously wouldn`t mind knocking Seymour Simon off death penalty cases, says that under state and federal rules, ”Justice Simon may not sit on any case” in which Jenner & Block appears while John Simon is a partner.
The firm also represents, for free, five other men challenging death sentences. Joan Cherry, supervisor of Daley`s criminal appeals section, says such representations have ”great potential” for increasing a firm`s business by attracting other defendants who can pay. Since John Simon is a partner, he theoretically benefits from such labor. Jenner partner Jerold Solovy said John Simon has not and won`t participate in the Garcia case and that the firm would expect Justice Simon to step down from any fee-paying cases involving the firm.
DIVORCE LAWYERS DECIDE WHO`S NO. 1
There`s dramatic word from the Palm Springs, Calif., annual meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial lawyers that an accord has been struck in the feverish ascent of a legal mountaintop: the presidency of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Cook County Judge Benjamin Mackoff had ruled that Floridian James O`Flarity, not Chicago`s James Friedman, was rightful president of the divorce group. The Floridian said that the Chicagoan had wrongfully submitted his own name for the nomination and was wrongfully elected last November. The Floridian had been president-elect and figured he would automatically become big cheese. Under a deal worked out in the sun between the two, O`Flarity will serve the remainder of a one-year term and Friedman will submit his name for nomination as president-elect in November. If he wins that election, Friedman becomes the boss the following November.
BRIEFS: Scott Lassar, after 10 years in the U.S. attorney`s office as a top financial crimes expert and a deputy chief of special prosecutions, leaves to handle civil and criminal litigation for Karon Morrison & Savikas. . . . The odds are slim, but the state is seeking a rehearing of a 3-0 federal appeals decision that reinstated an Illinois Nurses Association suit charging sex discrimination. District Judge Charles Kocoras had ditched the
”comparable worth” case. . . . Attorney Robert Bailey files the appeal of Richard LeFevour`s conviction and maintains that ”there can be no question that the district judge (Charles Norgle) permitted the jury to know that he favored a guilty verdict in the case.”. . . Partner Maura Ann McBreen leaves Kirkland & Ellis for Reuben & Proctor. For the second time, Waukegan Oldsmobile dealer Clarence Marquardt gets hammered by a jury for the unfair dismissal of a body shop employee; this time a worker gets $15,600 in actual and $20,000 in punitive damages. It`s a victory for Chicago`s David Mattenson, a loss for Mike Leech.
