Ex-Associate Files $75M Suit, Claims She Was Window Dressing at Clifford Chance
A former Haitian associate has filed a $75 million discrimination lawsuit against Clifford Chance that contends the firm gave her boring work and fired her when she complained.
The New York Sun reports that the plaintiff, Caroline Memnon, is “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.”
Memnon said that after she was fired she got job offers from Chadbourne & Parke and Manatt Phelps & Phillips, but they were later withdrawn. She finally landed a job at Sullivan & Worcester, but she was fired a month later, the suit says.
“From the inception, the Clifford Chance partners failed to provide me with meaningful legal work,” the suit said. “I was afforded a series of pointless reviews at Clifford Chance where those performing the review declared that despite my obvious intelligence the practice of law ‘was not for someone like me.’ “
A spokesman for Clifford Chance told the Wall Street Journal Law Blog that the firm believes the claim to be without merit and will contest the case.
A hat tip to Law Blog and Above the Law, which noted the story.
