Photo: J. Albert Diaz/ALM

A former White & Case senior legal assistant has accused the firm of pregnancy discrimination and claims it denied her wages and vacation pay following her February departure.

In a complaint filed in Manhattan state court Thursday, Hannah Kim, who started working in the firm's restructuring group in 2013, alleges a pattern of harassment by her two supervisors on her return from maternity leave in 2016, as well as a string of inappropriate comments by the leader of the practice before she went on leave.

Kim also said her supervisors failed to make proper accommodations for her after she suffered a brain injury from a 2018 automobile accident. In addition to the firm, the suit names longtime White & Case director of legal assistants Carol Grajeda and employee Rita Masino as defendants.

"Plaintiff was subject to severe harassment by the individual defendants as a result of her need to express milk while at the office," Kim said in the complaint. "This harassment was continuous and ongoing until Plaintiff stopped expressing milk for her child at work in approximately the fall of 2018."

Kim, who is represented by Kara Miller of New York employment boutique Virginia & Ambinder, details how she was allegedly barred from using the lactation room at the firm's New York office because of its distance from her own office. Instead, she had a latch hook attached to her door to ensure privacy while pumping. But she said that Grajeda would repeatedly try to open the door while she was in the process, while Masino would regularly use the phone to interrupt her, citing immediate needs that turned out to be trivial.

Masino allegedly made critical comments about breastfeeding, stating Kim's son was now a "grown-ass boy," that breastfeeding was "hink," and that "formula was invented for a reason." She also allegedly critiqued the appearance of Kim's breasts and disparaged her nursing bras.

Kim also said that both women repeatedly cautioned her against getting pregnant again, with both suggesting that she "keep her legs closed" and Masino intimating that Grajeda would find a way to fire her if she did.

Kim also said that a former lawyer at the firm discussed his wife's pregnancy and labor and the effect of childbirth on women's bodies in a manner that made her uncomfortable, even after she'd told him so.

And she said that she was the recipient of harassment from Grajeda and Masino after she returned to the office after the car accident, following a fight about accommodations to work part time from home as she recovered.

Kim voluntarily left the firm in February after she was denied a bonus in 2019 and saw her year-end review repeatedly postponed, which she described as signs that she was going to be terminated. But she says she's yet to receive payment for her last scheduled paycheck as well as unused vacation days.

A spokesman for White & Case, where the complaint says Grajeda and Masino are still employed, declined to comment on the suit Friday.