Jones Day’s offices. Photo: John Disney/ALM

The lone remaining anonymous plaintiff in the $200 million federal gender bias class action against Jones Day has removed her name and specific allegations from the lawsuit in response to a judge’s order that she reveal her identity by Monday.

When attorneys from Sanford Heisler Sharp initially filed the lawsuit in April, two former female associates at Jones Day revealed their names, but four sought anonymity, citing a fear that the firm would retaliate against them.

Three of these women ultimately elected to make their names public in June. The fourth had sought to preserve her privacy for three months based on concerns about her health and job search. But a ruling by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss of the District of Columbia forced her to go public this week or give up her role as a class representative.

“As the class is defined in the Second Amended Complaint filed last night, Jane Doe 4 remains a class member, though she is not among the named plaintiffs and proposed class representatives,” Sanford Heisler partner Deborah Marcuse said in an emailed statement.

In the original and first amended complaints, the woman was identified as an associate who did not work in California, unlike four of the other six original plaintiffs. She initially detailed a hostile working environment at the firm, contending she was routinely the subject of sexist comments. And she asserted that while her performance at the firm was strong enough to put her on track for a partnership, she was told she was impeded by an “associate problem” not specified on her annual performance review.

She also contended she was paid $400,000 below one male peer who had his salary made public.

Four of the women whose names remain on the suit worked in Jones Day’s Irvine, California, office. The other remaining original plaintiff worked in Atlanta, while one woman who joined the suit in June worked in New York.

Along with removing Jane Doe 4, the newest complaint acknowledges that Jones Day has updated its website since the filing of the original lawsuit to remove language detailing the outsized role that managing partner Stephen Brogan has in determining partner and associate compensation.

In the firm’s most extensive response to the lawsuit, filed in late July, Jones Day attacked claims that women at the firm were systematically underpaid and subjected to a hostile work environment and highlighted what it described as the professional failings of several women levying accusations against the firm. In a separate filing, the firm said that while the plaintiffs’ core intentional discrimination claims are meritless, their other related claims under several federal and local statutes don’t even bear consideration.

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