Bias Suit Claims Law Firm Cut Older Lawyer’s Pay, Lied About Available Cases
A 67-year-old lawyer claims in a lawsuit that his former New York law firm pressured him to take a 50 percent pay cut by lying about profitable cases available in his area of expertise.
Onetime staff lawyer Stephen Marcus claims Frenkel, Lambert, Weiss, Weisman & Gordon fired him three months after he accepted the new pay of $85,000, Reuters reports. The suit (PDF) claims age bias and fraud due to alleged promises that Marcus would get his original pay reinstated if higher-paying work was available.
“Instead, the firm hired a younger, less qualified attorney to handle the higher-paying work which was, in fact, available at the time the misrepresentations were made to Marcus,” the suit says. Marcus had handled surety cases, commercial and construction litigation, and insurance defense, and he had worked at the firm for two decades. But the firm transferred him to a different office, where he was forced to do unfamiliar mortgage and foreclosure work that required additional research to get up to speed, according to the suit.
“The firm wrongfully and illegally terminated Marcus because of his age, citing such factors as ‘he did not fit in’ and ‘you can’t change the way you work,’ ” the suit says. “Both are examples of ageist prejudice and stereotyping.”
