LeClairRyan offices. Photo: Rick Kopstein/ALM

As the future of AmLaw 200 firm LeClairRyan appears uncertain, two recent pieces of litigation against the firm hint at the liabilities that any successors to the firm may face.

Court papers filed three weeks ago show that the firm failed to make agreed-upon payments to the landlord of its shuttered Williamsburg, Virginia, office. Then, on July 26, a former marketing professional at the firm filed a federal lawsuit accusing the firm and ULX Partners LLC, its joint venture with UnitedLex, of gender discrimination.

Lori Thompson, the firm’s general counsel, did not immediately respond to an inquiry about both matters. 

The firm was sued July 10 in James City County Circuit Court by one of its landlords over $374,000 in rent for the Williamsburg office. The four lawyers in the office left for Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani in February.

The bare-bones confession of judgment filed by Robertson Liebler Development Group indicates that the law firm failed to pay the amounts due under a promissory note. The note doesn’t mention rent, but Robinson Liebler has the same address as the LLC that is listed in property records as the owner of the building where LeClairRyan had its offices.

LeClairRyan agreed to pay its landlord $506,000 under the promissory note, which was notarized Feb. 14 and signed by firm president Elizabeth Acee. Once the firm paid $272,000, the remaining amount due was to be waived, but based on the amount of the judgment, LeClairRyan only appears to have made the first payment, more or less.

Derek Robertson, listed as the landlord’s attorney-in-fact, didn’t respond to a request for clarification.

In the discrimination suit, filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, marketing professional Marci Keatts said that she unfairly earned less than her male colleagues as part of a systematic practice of underpaying women that extended, at the very least, to her 2010 arrival at the firm. 

Keatts was initially hired at the firm as a marketing communications coordinator and was promoted to marketing communications professional at the start of 2018, according to the complaint. 

While in her previous role, she learned that she was earning $14,000 less than a male colleague hired five years after her start. She said that even after being promoted to supervise the colleague and receiving a $7,000 increase, she still lagged his salary by $7,000. 

In April 2018, in advance of LeClairRyan’s public announcement that it had launched “strategic business platform” ULX Partners with UnitedLex to provide a range of business support services to other law firms, Keatts said that she was “rebadged” as a ULX employee. She was told that she would retain the same responsibilities and continue working from the same location. 

One other thing stayed the same, according to the complaint. Keatts continued to earn $7,000 less than her subordinate, who was also transferred to ULX. 

She did not stay long, however. After pointing out the continuing disparity to LeClairRyan’s head of human resources in May, she filed discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against both LeClairRyan and ULX, before resigning her position. 

“This was not a voluntary decision on plaintiff’s part, but the result of defendants’ insistence of continuing a discriminatory pay practice towards plaintiff as reflected in the compensation associated with the ‘offer’ for continued employment,” said Keats, represented by Harris D. Butler III of Butler Royals in Richmond, Virginia.

A spokeswoman for ULX did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. 

Keatts’ suit is not the first time concerns about gender discrimination have been raised publicly against LeClairRyan. In 2018, an arbitrator awarded former shareholder Michele Burke Craddock over $250,000 in back pay plus attorneys fees to correct for “intentional discrimination based on gender.”

The litigation comes amid a series of lateral partner exits this year, prompting questions about the firm’s future. In the last week, co-founder and name partner Gary LeClair joined regional firm Williams Mullen, the firm announced Thursday. The three lawyers are based in Richmond, Virginia. LeClair, who founded LeClairRyan in 1988 with Dennis Ryan, served as its CEO until 2011 and was its chairman until 2015.

Correction: an earlier version of this story misstated details of the confession of judgment related to the Williamsburg office. It was for over $374,000, not $348,000.