Jones Day plaintiffs go public as lawsuit expands

A gender discrimination lawsuit against Jones Day has expanded from Irvine to include the Atlanta and New York offices as three formerly anonymous ex-associates revealed their identities in an amended complaint.

A total of seven plaintiffs claim Jones Day has a fraternity-like culture, in which male attorneys are paid more and favored while female attorneys are harassed and relegated to a dead-end "mommy track." The amended complaint filed Monday in District of Columbia federal court, offers new details about the plaintiffs' salaries and allegations of hostility from male partners toward women. All but one of the plaintiffs' names are now public. Tolton v. Jones Day, 19-CV00945 (D.D.C., filed April 3, 2018).

"Each of us made the personal decision to stand up for what we believe is right and bring this action," according to a statement released by plaintiffs' counsel at Sanford Heisler Sharp LLP. The firm declined to comment further.

Two of the newly-public plaintiffs, Meredith L. Williams and Jaclyn B. Stahl, also worked in the Irvine office with the original named plaintiffs, Nilab Rahyar Tolton and Andrea L. Mazingo.

Williams, now at Rutan & Tucker LLP, was an associate at Jones Day from 2013 to 2017. Stahl, a San Diego U.S. Attorney's Office prosecutor, was a Jones Day associate from 2011 to 2018.

Saira Draper, the third formerly anonymous plaintiff, was an associate in Jones Day's Atlanta office from 2011 until 2018. She's now a senior staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Katrina R. Henderson, an Amazon Studios attorney, joined the lawsuit last Friday as a named plaintiff. She was an associate for Jones Day in New York from 2014 to 2016.

Over the past month, Jones Day sought to compel the four anonymous plaintiffs to reveal their identities, arguing the claims don't involve highly sensitive personal information, and that as former employees, the plaintiffs don't show enough risk of retaliation, according to a May 20 motion. The plaintiffs had argued going public would blacklist them from other firms, but three agreed to reveal their identities earlier this month.

Jones Day did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment.

The amended complaint also included the plaintiffs' annual salaries, which shows they were paid as much as $220,000 less than market-competitive pay, based on Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP's pay scale.

"Jones Day does not pay in so-called 'lockstep' -- not partners, not associates, not anyone. And Jones Day's system of 'black box' compensation results in the systematic underpayment of women," according to the complaint.