A former acting general counsel and chief compliance officer's gender discrimination lawsuit against her ex-employer is raising questions about her use of alleged privileged and confidential information learned during the job as the basis for her complaint.

But, as a public policy matter, such pleadings must be allowed “because [otherwise], no woman working professionally as an attorney would be able to protect herself from an employer's gender discrimination and retaliation,” the plaintiff, Jennifer Fischman, said last week in a memo of law opposing a motion to dismiss.

The defendants behind that dismissal motion are New York-based Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings America Inc., its current GC and president. Fischman accuses Mitsubishi of passing her over for the permanent role of GC and chief compliance officer in favor of a less-qualified, younger and less-experienced male attorney.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, also alleges that Fischman was illegally fired after speaking out against wrongful discrimination against her and other female employees. The proferred reason for Fischman's firing was a supposed breach of her professional ethical duty by allegedly approving a settlement counterproposal extended by Mitsubishi's outside counsel without first obtaining the required consent and approval of the company executives in Japan.

According to the defendants, Fischman's complaint is “replete” with privileged and confidential information she learned while serving as counsel at Mitsubishi and advising its clients, and such reliance on information to support her allegations violates the attorney-client privilege, as well as Fischman's fiduciary and ethical duties.

“Plaintiff's breach of her ethical obligations—while unsurprising to Defendants because they terminated Plaintiff for similar ethical violations—demonstrates a flagrant disregard for the rules of the legal profession,” according to the memo in support of their motion to dismiss, filed by Mercedes Colwin, Francis Giambalvo and Jeffrey Camhi of the New York office of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani. “Plaintiff cannot disclose such information to benefit herself in a lawsuit—indeed, the law requires dismissal of claims reliant on such information.”

Because such portions are redacted in the defendants' filing, it is unknown which information they claim is privileged and confidential, but Fischman alleges in her filing last week that none of it qualifies for protection.

“But even if it was protected, Plaintiff would still be permitted to use the information because the rules of attorney conduct expressly provide that a lawyer may reveal such information in a controversy between the lawyer and the client where Defendants have put Plaintiff's ethical conduct at issue by terminating Plaintiff based upon a purported breach of legal ethics,” according to the memo, filed by Matthew Berman, Sara Wyn Kane and Robert Valli Jr. of Valli Kane & Vagnini.

Although the majority—more than 20 pages—of the defendants' memo in support of its motion to dismiss the case is devoted to this privilege argument, it does ask the court, in the remaining four-plus pages, to dismiss Fischman's claims of retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent destruction of plaintiff's employment opportunities, or tortious interference with prospective business relations.

The suit seeks an undetermined amount of money damages.