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| September 21, 2007 |
By: Shannon P. Duffy |
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ozen O'Connor has been hit with a sex discrimination suit by a woman lawyer who claims she was ousted from the firm in September 2005, less than a month after she filed a formal complaint of gender discrimination with the firm's director of human resources.
In the suit, attorney Patricia Biswanger claims that when her political activities in Haverford Township became controversial, Cozen O'Connor employed a double standard by prohibiting her from using any "firm resources" for political work, while having no objection to the political activities of male attorneys.
"Numerous male attorneys at the firm are politically active, and no restrictions are placed on their political involvement," the suit alleges. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District.
The suit, filed by attorneys Michael J. Salmanson, Scott B. Goldshaw and Katie R. Eyer of Salmanson Goldshaw, alleges that instead of investigating Biswanger's complaint that she was being discriminated against on the basis of her gender, the firm set out to find proof that she had violated the instruction not to use firm resources for her political activities.
Cozen O'Connor referred questions to attorney Abraham Reich of Fox Rothschild, who said Cozen O'Connor "always treated women fairly," and that in Biswanger's case, the evidence will show that the firm "followed a fair and objective process."
Reich also said many women lawyers have succeeded at Cozen O'Connor, including some who have risen to leadership roles in the firm - a fact, Reich said, that "refutes any notion that they didn't treat women fairly."
Declining to discuss any of Biswanger's specific allegations, Reich said, "we look forward to our day in court."
In the suit, Biswanger claims she had complied with the directive to avoid the use of firm resources in political work by using her cell phone instead of the firm's phone, by using her Yahoo! e-mail account and by directing her friends to call her cell phone and e-mail her Yahoo! account.
But the suit alleges that starting in late 2004 and continuing throughout 2005, attorney Kevin Berry, who was chairman of the firm's commercial litigation department "embarked on a campaign of harassment" against Biswanger.
Berry did so, the suit alleges, "at the direction of Patrick J. O'Connor, then chief executive officer of the firm, and perhaps Stephen Cozen."
The harassment, the suit claims, "arose from their shared belief that it is inappropriate and unseemly for female attorneys to be politically active, especially in controversial matters."
Cozen, Berry and O'Connor, the suit alleges, "perceived politically active women as aggressive, overbearing, and unattractive, and therefore a detriment to the firm."
It also alleges that the three men "prefer and promote women who fit traditional female stereotypes of being attractive, compliant and mild-mannered, a standard that is not applied to male attorneys."
By contrast, the suit alleges, Cozen, Berry and O'Connor "had no objection to the widespread, aggressive, controversial and continuing and/or deepening political involvement of numerous male attorneys at the firm."
The firm supported the political involvement of male attorneys "financially and otherwise," the suit alleges, in local, state and national politics.
The suit cites seven alleged examples of male attorneys whose political work was supported, including some who allegedly used firm resources for political work without any objection from the firm. They are as follows:
Patrick Murphy was running for Congress during the same time Biswanger claims she was being told "to curb her political involvement," the suit says, and the firm provided Murphy with a salary, an office and a secretary "throughout his campaign."
Cozen has been "publicly associated" with the campaigns of Gov. Edward G. Rendell, Bob Brady, Phil English and Bill Richardson, among others, and "frequently solicits firm employees for contributions to their campaigns," the suit alleges.
O'Connor worked on the campaigns of numerous candidates, the suit alleges, including Murphy's and those of various Lackawanna County candidates, and also "frequently solicits" campaign contributions from firm employees.
Mark Schultz was active with Sen. Arlen Specter's re-election campaign, the suit alleges, and used firm resources to send out fundraising letters on Specter's behalf.
Ross Weiss has served as treasurer for various Montgomery County Republican candidates over the years - a service he performs "from his offices at the firm, with the assistance of firm personnel and using firm resources," the suit alleges.
Barry Kitain ran for school board in Upper Darby Township, the suit claims, in a "highly contentious, well-publicized race."
Jim Robinson hosted a reception at the firm's offices for Chris Cerski, a candidate for district justice, and "used firm resources to distribute Mr. Cerski's campaign literature," the suit alleges.
In the suit, Biswanger claims that during her nearly seven years at the firm, her work was consistently rated as "excellent" or "outstanding," and that she was routinely given generous raises and bonuses that were "among the largest awarded" to the firm's junior members.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she served as executive editor of the law review, Biswanger clerked for U.S. District Judge Donald W. Van Artsdalen and worked at Wolf Block Schorr & Solis-Cohen and Pepper Hamilton before joining Cozen O'Connor in January 1999, the suit says.
Biswanger was promoted from associate to junior member in January 2001, the suit says, and in March 2005, just a few months before she was fired, she received "the highest-percentage raise of all junior members that year, and one of the highest bonuses."
But Biswanger claims that her involvement in the contentious world of Haverford Township politics became a serious issue at the firm.
One of Biswanger's rivals in Haverford was former Delaware County President Judge Kenneth A. Clouse, the suit alleges.
Biswanger claims she had raised objections to Clouse's involvement in township politics because such conduct is prohibited for members of the judiciary.
Clouse responded, the suit alleges, by trying to contact Cozen to persuade him to fire Biswanger.
But Biswanger claims that Cozen, who was chairman of the firm, "assured her that she had nothing to worry about, and that if Judge Clouse wanted to 'play politics' with him, he would 'welcome the challenge.'"
Later, the suit says, Clouse hired attorney Richard A. Sprague of Sprague & Sprague for the purpose of filing a suit against Biswanger and her political ally for allegedly defaming Clouse.
Biswanger's suit alleges that "Sprague contacted Patrick O'Connor to complain about [Biswanger's] political activities, and . . . told Mr. O'Connor that if [Biswanger] were not fired, he would include the [Cozen O'Connor] firm in the suit."
It was at that point, Biswanger claims, that she was told by O'Connor that she was "henceforward prohibited from using any 'firm resources' in connection with her political activities."
Sprague, in an interview, denied the allegation, saying "to the extent that she claims I in any way threatened the Cozen firm, that allegation is totally false."
Biswanger claims she "made every effort to comply" with the directive that she not use firm resources in her political activities.
But in November 2004, the suit says, Biswanger used the firm's letterhead to send a "preservation of evidence" letter to attorney George R. Twardy Jr., a Haverford Township political opponent who she claims was publicly threatening to sue her.
Soon after, the suit alleges, Berry summoned Biswanger to his office and told her that she was "insubordinate," that O'Connor was "very angry," and that if Berry wanted to, he "could fire [her] immediately."
The suit claims Berry told Biswanger "that she had deliberately disobeyed Mr. O'Connor's direct orders not to use firm resources in her political activities."
In March 2005, Biswanger claims that she was put on probation at the firm by Berry, who told her that he reviewed all the Haverford-related files, and that he had found a "large number" of infractions of firm rules and policies.
In August 2005, as her probationary period was about to end, Biswanger claims she lodged a formal complaint of discrimination with Cheryl Progin, the firm's human resources director.
The suit alleges Biswanger was told to put her complaint in writing and that she did so, complaining that Berry was "unlawfully discriminating against her on the basis of her gender."
In the written complaint, Biswanger said she considered her probation and the prohibition on use of firm resources, as well as Berry's overall scrutiny of her political activities, to be disparate treatment.
In a meeting, the suit alleges, Biswanger also complained that, as the probationary period drew to a close, Berry had "starved" her for new work, refusing to assign her new cases so that her billable hours had "dropped precipitously."
But soon after that meeting, the suit claims, Progin told Biswanger that she had investigated the complaint and determined that Biswanger's allegations were unfounded.
In September 2005, the suit alleges, Biswanger was summoned to a meeting with Progin and attorney Fred Jacoby, chairman of the firm's business litigation department, where she was confronted with four documents that showed she had violated the ban on using firm resources for political activities.
Biswanger claims she tried to explain that the documents had been e-mailed to her Yahoo! account by Andy Lewis, a Haverford Township commissioner, so that she could edit them, and that she had saved them to the firm's hard drive, made some edits, and e-mailed them back on her Yahoo! account.
The suit claims Biswanger made a last-ditch effort to save her job by pleading her case directly to O'Connor and Cozen in a memo.
"I love my job, I am an excellent lawyer, I get uniformly excellent evaluations, clients love me, and I have been a good firm citizen for almost seven years. I don't understand why all that is being ignored while a case is being built against me to justify my termination," Biswanger wrote in the memo, which is quoted in the suit.
But Biswanger claims she never received any response from O'Connor or Cozen.
Instead, the suit alleges, on the following Monday, she was again summoned to a meeting with Jacoby who told her that the decision had been made to terminate her "effective immediately."
Shannon P. Duffy reports for the Legal Intelligencer, an affiliate of the Daily Business Review
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