Executive compensation lawyer Wendy Moore has accused her former law firm Jones Day of sex discrimination, alleging in a representative action in San Francisco state court that the firm runs as a “fraternity” and maintains a black box pay system that has led to gender disparities.

Moore, who joined Perkins Coie as a partner in Palo Alto earlier this year after about five years at Jones Day, alleges that her former law firm violated California's equal pay law and the state's Labor Code through “systematic gender discrimination in compensation.” The suit was brought as a representative action under the California Private Attorneys General Act on behalf of Moore and other “aggrieved” employees.

“Jones Day operates as a fraternity,” the complaint said. “Male senior partners mentor male associates and assist them in climbing the ranks to partnership. They pass the firm's business through male-centered social events focused on athletics. Female attorneys are treated as second-class citizens. They are not, nor can they be, full members in the fraternity.”

A team from Sanford Heisler Sharp, led by firm chairman David Sanford, represents Moore; Sanford and his firm have also been at the helm of several other recent gender discrimination actions brought against current and former large law firms, including Ogletree, Deakins, Nash Smoak & Stewart, Proskauer Rose and Morrison & Foerster.

A Jones Day spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Among other specific details, Moore's complaint cited a recent financial disclosure from a former Jones Day sixth-year associate who joined the Trump administration. In that government disclosure, the associate listed a salary of $810,000 in 2015—about the same amount that Moore earned as a base salary as an eighth-year partner, according to the complaint.

More generally, the complaint alleged that a “boys club” pervades the culture at Jones Day and that male firm partners often make sexist comments and rate female colleagues based on their physical attractiveness. That environment, the suit alleged, leads female lawyers to be “undervalued and marginalized,” and sets up a “patronage” system in which younger male lawyers receive more business development opportunities and other kinds of support than their female peers.

The suit also takes aim at Jones Day's “black box” pay system, alleging that, as a result of it and the firm's overall male-dominated culture, a small group of influential male partners control all compensation decisions. Lawyers at the firm, meanwhile, are encouraged to refrain from discussing their pay, according to the complaint.

“This system lacks sufficient quality controls, implementation metrics, transparency and oversight,” the complaint said. “Unsurprisingly, the outcome of this system is that these male leaders systematically undervalue female attorneys, pay them less than their male counterparts, and provide no avenues to female attorneys to inquire about their pay, much less learn how to increase it.”

Beyond allegations of a fraternity-like atmosphere and unfair pay, the complaint goes on to allege that Moore faced retaliation after speaking up within Jones Day about gender bias issues.

Although she had raised concerns several times during her tenure at Jones Day, Moore decided to hire Sanford in February after she was told not to come to the firm's all-partner meeting. Moore told the firm on Feb. 22 through her lawyers that she planned to pursue discrimination claims and, just six days later, received a letter saying her partnership had been terminated, according to the complaint. The firm allegedly refused to return some $337,500 in capital contributions Moore had made as a partner, and another $200,000 in compensation that she previously earned.

“Jones Day's message in terminating Wendy could not be clearer,” Sanford said in a statement announcing Moore's complaint against her former firm.

The suit also references the firm's past representation of Donald Trump—who bragged about groping women in an “Access Hollywood” video that surfaced during the 2016 presidential campaign—as a marker of the firm's male-dominated environment.

“Ms. Moore raised serious concerns about the firm's misogynist culture and its impact on her career, as well as the firm's support for now-President Donald Trump, a former firm client who has boasted about 'grab[bing women] by the pussy,' only to defend this comment as 'locker room talk,'” the complaint said. “Ms. Moore's complaints of gender discrimination were ultimately the cause of Jones Day's decision to terminate her.”