American Airline Arena after a Miami Heat basketball game.

A former associate general counsel and vice president for the Miami Heat alleges in a federal lawsuit that the NBA team and its top lawyer retaliated against her after she adopted a baby and took maternity leave. 

Vered Yakovee worked in the Heat's legal department from March 2015 until December 2019, when the organization's president of business operations called her into his office and "told her she was terminated, and to go home immediately," according to a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month in Miami. 

Yakovee is a veteran sports law attorney who previously served as associate team counsel for the Boston Celtics, taught sports law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and was editor-in-chief for the American Bar Association's entertainment and sports lawyer publication. 

Her complaint, which alleges violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act, names the Miami Heat organization as the sole defendant. But the team's general counsel and Yakovee's former boss, Raquel Libman, figures prominently in the allegations laid out in the complaint. 

Libman, a graduate of Yale University and the University of Miami School of Law, joined the Heat as general counsel in 2001, after having served as the GC for Continucare Corp., a publicly traded health care firm. She has three sons, according to her bio page on the Heat's website. 

In a 2013 interview with Profile magazine, Libman said her "liberal upbringing" made it easier for her to enter the traditionally male-dominated world of professional sports. That upbringing, she explained, "prevented certain mental barriers from developing too early and therefore it enabled me—and even encouraged me—to take risks and not shy away from competitiveness in the workplace."

When Yakovee announced in July 2019 that she had been selected to adopt a newborn baby and would need immediate parental leave, Libman allegedly responded by saying, "Now I definitely won't get to take a vacation," according to Yakovee's complaint. 

Yakovee took maternity leave under the FMLA, a federal law that gives covered employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid childbirth and bonding time. She returned to a hostile work environment where Libman treated her with "disdain and hostility," according to the suit.

"She [Libman] berated Ms. Yakovee and complained about her FMLA leave not only privately, but also publicly in group meetings and on group email correspondence," the complaint states. The suit adds that Libman canceled the weekly one-on-one meetings she'd been having with Yakovee since she was hired and unfairly criticized her work in group emails and in front of colleagues.  

Attempts to speak with a Heat representative and Libman were not immediately successful. The team has yet to respond to Yakovee's complaint. 

"My client and I stand behind the allegations in the complaint," Yakovee's attorney, Erika Rotbart of Deutsch Rotbart & Associates in Boca Raton, Florida, said on Friday. She declined to comment further. 

In her complaint, Yakovee states that the Heat's vice president of human resources asked to meet with her after Libman "self-reported" to HR, though it is unclear what exactly Libman reported. 

After the meeting, Yakovee said she provided, at HR's request, a report detailing the "disparate, hostile, and demeaning treatment she was suffering at the hands of Ms. Libman." 

She later asked the president of business operations to assign an independent investigator to the matter because the HR vice president and Libman are "close friends," according to the complaint. But her request was denied on the same day that the director of human resources sent Yakovee an email criticizing her for failing to provide "enough advance notice" for her parental leave.

Yakovee asserts in her complaint that the email was part of an effort "led by Ms. Libman and supported" by the Heat to "litter the file" and provide Libman and the team "grounds to continue to harass and retaliate" against her.

After she was fired and sent home, Yakovee said she received a text message from the Heat's outside counsel, who wanted her to "immediately execute a non-negotiable, 'take-it-or-leave-it'" severance agreement that would have required her to waive her rights in exchange for monetary compensation. She declined the offer.  

Now, Yakovee is seeking lost wages, employment benefits and other compensation and damages. She also wants her job back.