Proskauer Rose on Wednesday hit back at an amended $50 million gender discrimination complaint from Washington, D.C., partner Connie Bertram, disputing the suit's depiction of how her business stacks up against peers and presenting a different portrayal of events that Bertram pointed to as examples of alleged mistreatment and retaliation.

The law firm filed an answer to Bertram's amended complaint in Washington federal court late Wednesday, denying the labor and employment partner's allegations that gender bias led to her receiving unfair pay.

Proskauer's response comes after Bertram lodged the amended complaint on April 25, adding new claims and revealing her identity for the first time since filing the initial suit in May 2017. Previously, the suit was proceeding with a Jane Doe plaintiff. At Proskauer, Bertram has served as co-head of the whistleblowing and retaliation group, and head of the government contractor compliance group.

Connie Bertram
(Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)

As was true with Bertram's amended complaint, the firm's filing on Wednesday redacts information that appears to detail Bertram's exact compensation. But the latest filing does provide details about the size of Bertram's book of business during her time with the firm, which she joined in 2013. The firm, defended by Proskauer partner Kathleen McKenna, alleges that Bertram “cherry-picked” statistics about her contributions to the firm that ignore the full picture.

Specifically, the firm wrote that Bertram's originated revenues grew in 2014 and peaked in 2015 at about $9.2 million. But they then began to drop off, falling to $8.4 million in 2016 and to $4.15 million in 2017. The 2017 figure, Proskauer wrote, marks a 55 percent decline as compared to Bertram's peak revenue origination in 2015. Despite the drop in 2016, Proskauer said it actually increased Bertram's allocation of the firm's profits, and despite an “enormous decline” in 2017, Bertram's share of profits dropped by just 2 percent that year.

“Plaintiff's claims disregard the allocation system to which she agreed, as she focuses on those metrics most favorable to her, ignores others that expose weaknesses in the profitability of her practice, and affords no recognition to non-metric factors critical to the allocation decisions,” Proskauer wrote in its answer. “Plaintiff also ignores the financial rewards that she obtained by joining Proskauer.”

Reached for comment on Thursday, Bertram's lead lawyer, David Sanford of Sanford Heisler Sharp, offered a short statement that disputed Proskauer's claims.

“Proskauer is excellent at spinning a tale,” he said. “We look forward to discovery in this case and to a jury's evaluation of all the evidence.”

Proskauer also responds to an episode detailed in Bertram's complaint in which she had to back out of an upcoming trial because of a family emergency involving one of her children. Bertram, a single mother, alleged in the amended complaint that after she informed the firm of the emergency, the two male partners who replaced her on the trial “berated” her, were “overtly hostile,” disregarded her advice, and disparaged her to peers.

In the wake of that alleged mistreatment, Bertram's “blood pressure soared so high that she was rushed by ambulance to the hospital,” the amended complaint said. “Shortly thereafter, plaintiff met for the first time in her life with a psychiatrist, who directed her to enter psychotherapy and prescribed medication.”

But Proskauer's answer portrays the events surrounding that trial in a much different light. Far from mistreating Bertram, the firm argued, Proskauer took several steps to support her through the family emergency. The firm said the trial involved a major client of Bertram's—accounting for two-thirds of her revenue originations between 2014 and 2016—and was a first bellwether of 17 related cases on which Bertram had been the only partner for several years.

“On ten days' notice, two Los Angeles based partners with whom plaintiff was scarcely acquainted dropped everything in their professional and personal lives and relocated to Virginia to handle a case with which they had no prior involvement,” the firm wrote in Wednesday's filing. “Proskauer also offered plaintiff substantial personal support, contrary to her baseless allegation that the department co-chairs 'berated' her.”

To buttress its depiction, Proskauer also quotes at length from an effusive email that, according to the firm, Bertram sent to colleagues after she had stepped back from the case.

“How do you thank two partners who gave up four weeks of their lives because their partner has a challenging personal situation? How do you thank the firm leadership for jumping into the situation and handling it with such grace?” Bertram wrote in an April 2016 email to colleagues, according to Proskauer. “All I can say is thank you, thank you, and thank you again. I think that—after 17 years with the title—I truly understand and appreciate the term 'partner.'”

A spokesman for Proskauer said the firm had no additional comment beyond Wednesday's court filing.

Both Bertram's amended complaint and Proskauer's answer on Wednesday came in the early stages of a limited discovery period focused on a key question about the partner's employment status at the firm. The two sides disagree on whether Bertram, as an equity partner whose compensation is tied in part to the firm's financial performance, should be considered a business owner or an employee.

If she is a business owner, as Proskauer argues, it's likely she would not be protected by the anti-discrimination laws invoked in the suit, which typically apply only to employees. Bertram's lawyers, led by Sanford, have countered that she should be considered an employee for the purposes of those anti-bias laws. The firm, they have argued, maintains a centralized leadership structure that assigns little control over strategic or business decisions to “rank-and-file” partners.

In late March, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia declined to grant a summary judgment motion by Proskauer, but also expressed some skepticism about Bertram's suit. The judge then set the case toward a period of limited discovery focused on the question of Bertram's employment status.

Jackson later ordered the two sides to try to mediate their claims under an alternative dispute resolution process established in the court's local rules. The mediation is set to end June 18 unless the two sides settle before that, according to an April 17 scheduling order.