US firm Howrey is being sued by a former Brussels-based associate for racial discrimination.
The $30m (£18.9m) suit, filed today in the civil division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, alleges that Howrey discriminated against Kamisha Menns because of her race and national origin.
Menns, a Jamaican, is a former Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer associate who worked at Howrey between January and June last year. She is thought to be the first and only black attorney to ever work in Howrey’s Brussels office.
According to the claim, Menns’s employment at the US firm was ended the day after she made a formal written complaint to Howrey’s DC headquarters.
Menns’ complaint describes escalating hostility and discrimination from former colleagues, staff and supervisors at Howrey. She claims that when she spoke to Howrey’s Brussels managing partner Trevor Soames about the way she was being treated he said what she was experiencing was racism, “which he recognised as a Jewish person”.
According to Menns, Soames added that the firm’s staff and lawyers were reacting in that way “because they had never been forced to be in a subordinate position to a black person, particularly a black woman with my level of education or who looked and spoke like I did”.
The racially charged comments and racial stereotyping from other attorneys escalated after this meeting, Menns claims.
Menns is seeking damages of $30m in accumulated lost wages and benefits plus compensation.
She is being represented by David Sanford in the Washington DC office of Sanford Wittels & Heisler.
Howrey said: “Personnel issues are always confidential and we will have no comment on this particular matter.”
Readers' comments (13)
Joe | 27-Jan-2010 4:56 pm
US$30 Million in lost wages and benefits plus compensation? What is that? About $29.85 M worth of "compensation"? Ridiculous.
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Anonymous | 27-Jan-2010 5:13 pm
you obviously are not black, nor a lawyer and don't understand what this has done to her career. She can never practice law again, and it isn't her fault. A young beautiful and black female lawyer doesn't deserve this!
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Anonymous | 27-Jan-2010 7:39 pm
@Anonymous: I am not black nor a lawyer, but I think I understand what this has done to her career. She can, however, practice law again, though she will probably not be hired by a V250 or similarly large law firm. You say "A young beautiful and black female lawyer doesn't deserve this!" Would she deserve it were she old, ugly, male, or in some profession other than law?
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Anonymous | 28-Jan-2010 6:58 am
And you're obviously so biased that you think only a black lawyer can understand the damage that racism bestows. If she truly is the vicitm of racism, and it does truly end her legal career, she's entitled to a lot. But almost $30M in compensation? Are we to assume that's how much she would have made in her career?
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Anonymous | 28-Jan-2010 11:02 am
It is just to make headlines and it works. "Haitian woman sued CC for $75 million, claiming that the firm used her only as window dressing because of her race, fired her for complaining about it, and finally blacklisted her in the New York law community." Result? Settled.
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Anonymous | 28-Jan-2010 1:36 pm
There are plently of very serious race and gender complaints even those that have been reported to the police but little has been done by law firms in the city and lawyers have just continued to work quietly . What a shameful society we live in.
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Anonymous | 28-Jan-2010 6:07 pm
Read the complaint for the full picture.
You can judge about the quality of management, the discretion afforded to senior associates, the general atmosphere of blame, avoidance of responsibility and absence of due process let alone the attempted assertion of big law power. No one in Brussels will be surprised.
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Belgian | 29-Jan-2010 6:50 pm
Agree. Howrey has a "certain" reputation in Brussels to put it mildly. No wonder it happened to them. Curious to see "honourable" Prof. Geradin involved in all of this.
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Anonymous | 30-Jan-2010 9:25 am
I assume those reading this article have not lost all their critical faculties and presumably don't believe, without any evidence, assertions made in any complaint or litigation. What a plaintiff writes is not necessarily true, we all know that.
By the way, why is a Jamaican lawyer working in Brussels suing in the USA. Odd. Looks like an attempt to get lots of money.
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Anonymous | 2-Feb-2010 8:48 am
Dear Anonymous | 28-Jan-2010 6:07 pm, please advise how you can get the full complaint.
Diversity in the law - comment! There is lip service and knee jerk reactions to be seen to be doing something positive but more often than not, it's all to do with cheap and quick profile raising of the firm with no real hearts and minds behind it so it renders it shallow and ephemeral.
It is a very tough climb when having been in the law (on the testosterone fuelled corporate finance side) for more years than I care to remember, you have never come across another senior black lawyer face in meetings or other client matter/practice development dealings - perhaps it's a generational thing and may be in a few generations to come, we'll see black,gay,female, physically disabled and white all embracing each other and their clients leading their firms / at the highest echelons of the legal profession
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