Baker McKenzie offices in Washington, D.C. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

A retired Baker McKenzie partner from Illinois is the named plaintiff in a federal lawsuit challenging a California law that requires corporations to include women on their boards of directors.

Creighton Meland Jr., a former banking and finance partner in Baker McKenzie's Chicago office, is represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation. The complaint, filed in California's Eastern District, said the new state law "is not only deeply patronizing to women, it is also plainly unconstitutional."

A resident of Hinsdale, Illinois, Meland is a shareholder of Hawthorne, California-based OSI Systems, which makes medical monitoring and security components. The company's seven-member board of directors includes no women.

Meland and his attorneys at the Pacific Legal Foundation allege the law, which the complaint refers to as "the woman quota," denies him the "right to vote for the candidate of his choice, free from the threat that the corporation will be fined if he votes without regard to sex."

Meland, through his attorney, declined to comment on the suit. Anastasia Boden, a senior attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, said Meland approached the firm for representation in the case.

California's law requires a publicly traded company with "principal executive offices" in the state to have at least one woman serving on its board of directors by the end of 2019. By 2021, companies with six or more directors must have at least three women serving on the board. Corporate violators are subject to fines starting at $100,000.

"This law puts equal numbers above equal treatment," Boden said in a prepared statement. "This law is built on the condescending belief that women aren't capable of getting into the boardroom unless the government opens the door for them. Women are capable of earning a spot on corporate boards without the government coercing businesses to hire them."

Senate Bill 826 was a priority bill for the California Legislature's Women's Caucus. The legislation was patterned after similar requirements in European countries, including Norway and Germany, that a certain number of corporate board seats be reserved for women.

The legislation was among the last bills signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. Although he noted "potential flaws that indeed may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation," Brown wrote in a signing statement that "given all the special privileges that corporations have enjoyed for so long, it's high time corporate boards include the people who constitute more than half the 'persons' in America."

The bill's author, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, said she respects Meland's "constitutional right" to challenge the law.

"However, I strongly believe that this measure meets constitutional requirements and will be held up in court," Jackson said. "Significant research has shown the importance of adding women to boards to improve profitability and add to the economic well-being of the state, as well the interest of the state to advance gender equality."

The law is facing a separate challenge in state court by three plaintiffs represented by the conservative group Judicial Watch Inc. That complaint alleges that the hiring requirements violate anti-discrimination language in Article 1 of California's constitution.