Jones Day's offices in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2015. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Jones Day now faces allegations of gender bias in its Atlanta and New York offices, as three formerly anonymous, female ex-associates have unmasked themselves, and one new accuser has joined their claims in the $200 million class action against the firm.

The 127-page amended complaint, filed late Monday, also includes new salary details from the six original plaintiffs. These purportedly demonstrate that, contrary to Jones Day's assertion that top-performing associates earn at the “upper level of the markets in which we operate,” the women were not compensated along the “Cravath scale.”

Following several rounds of sparring over four original accusers' rights to proceed anonymously, three of the women agreed earlier this month to reveal their identities, while one is still seeking to preserve her privacy for three months based on concerns about her health and job search.

Two of the women whose names were revealed Monday worked in Jones Day's Irvine, California, office, where Nilab Rahyar Tolton and Andrea Mazingo—the original named plaintiffs in the suit—worked until 2018.

Meredith Williams worked at Jones Day until 2017 and is now an associate at California firm Rutan & Tucker. Jaclyn Stahl left Jones Day in 2018 and is now a federal prosecutor in the San Diego U.S. Attorney's Office.

Both Stahl and Williams identified moments when male partners at the office expressed hostility toward women with families, and moments when clients made repeated inappropriate comments. They also noted that they had received contradictory messaging in their reviews while at the firm: Stahl had been faulted for expressing unavailability and failing to stretch herself; Williams had been critiqued for the opposite sin of “overcommitting” to matters.

The former associate in Atlanta, Saira Draper, joined Jones Day in 2011 and was terminated in 2018, according to the complaint, alongside multiple other women in that office who were either terminated or demoted after becoming mothers. Draper is now a senior staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Draper alleged that she was pushed into the firm's tobacco litigation practice group, a move that came with hefty travel demands, after her first child was born. According to the complaint, she then struggled to receive trial assignments, even after offering valuable contributions when she received the opportunity to travel. She was later removed from the tobacco group and ultimately booted from the firm following a poor evaluation after she returned from her second maternity leave.

Ironically, the Atlanta office launched a women's affinity group shortly before her exit. Draper said she learned the firm let a proposal for the group languish for a year, but took action after former California partner Wendy Moore sued the firm for gender discrimination. (Moore settled her suit earlier this month.)

Allegations regarding Jones Day's New York office came from Katrina Henderson, now an attorney for Amazon's television production arm in California. Henderson gave notice June 21 that she was joining the lawsuit. She worked in New York from October 2013 to July 2016.

Henderson alleged that she was berated by her supervising partner on multiple occasions for taking short pauses on assignments to spend time with family. She said she was denied alternate mentorship opportunities and was ultimately terminated after not receiving sufficient opportunity to earn billable hours.

Henderson, who is African American, alleged that around the time of her departure, one of the few other African American attorneys in the New York office warned her that while she would be within her rights to sue the firm for discrimination, she should not because Jones Day would “destroy her career.”

The seven women now on the complaint also provided details of their salaries and bonuses during their time at the firm, illustrating that their pay did not compare with the Cravath scale. They said Jones Day's “black box” system of compensation allows the firm to depart from its stated commitment to reward top performers with pay that matches market leaders.

Tolton, for example, said that by her seventh year at the firm, she was earning $225,000, while the Cravath scale provided for $300,000 in salary and another $100,000 in bonus, a difference of $175,000.

Draper, in Atlanta, started earning $150,000 as an associate in 2011 and 2012, while the Cravath scale at the time offered salary of $160,000 and a $7,500 bonus. By the time she left the firm in her seventh year, she was earning $230,000, while associates with equivalent tenure on the Cravath scale were earning $450,000 with bonuses, the complaint said.

In New York, Henderson started earning the $160,000 that Cravath-scale attorneys were earning in 2013. But in three years, her total compensation only climbed by $20,000, while attorneys on the Cravath scale were earning a base of $210,000 and a $50,000 bonus.

The plaintiffs issued a new joint statement following the filing:

“Each of us made the personal decision to stand up for what we believe is right and bring this action. It is time to do away with the stigmatization of women who challenge discrimination and harassment in their workplaces. We will not stay silent; we will not be bullied. And we are empowered by our solidarity.”

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

In the firm's sole public response to the suit, posted on its website in April, it said it provided women flexibility in their path to partnership and highlighted the leadership roles women play in the firm.

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