Davis Polk Says Ex-Associate Suing for Race Discrimination Had 'Troubling' Performance
The Wall Street firm has retained Paul Weiss, including partners Bruce Birenboim, Jeh Johnson and Susanna Buergel, to seek to dismiss the suit.
December 16, 2019 at 02:19 PM
4 minute read
Paul Weiss partners Bruce Birenboim, Jeh Johnson and Susanna Buergel. ALM photos
Davis Polk & Wardwell, firing back against a high-profile racial discrimination suit brought by former associate Kaloma Cardwell, claims the lawyer has a documented history of poor performance and he didn't improve, despite efforts to coach him.
Davis Polk has retained Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, including partners Bruce Birenboim, Jeh Johnson and Susanna Buergel, to seek to dismiss the suit, according to Dec. 13 court documents.
Caldwell filed suit against the law firm in early November in New York federal court, alleging Davis Polk's leaders denied him opportunities to work on substantive deals and gave him bad performance reviews as a pretext for his 2018 firing.
In a Dec 13 letter to U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods of the Southern District of New York, Davis Polk's lawyers gave their longest response to date to Cardwell's allegations.
"From the outset, plaintiff's work was notably uneven, and by the end of 2016, his second year at the firm, senior lawyers in three different practice groups had observed—and documented—troubling problems with plaintiff's performance," Davis Polk said in the letter. "He neglected the tasks that were assigned to him. He missed deadlines. … His work product was frequently substandard, marred by errors, and had to be redone by others."
The firm claimed its senior partners coached Cardwell and attempted to help him improve but said he developed a bad reputation within his practice group. His superiors felt they couldn't staff Cardwell on "more challenging matters" while keeping its clients' best interests in mind.
The Dec. 13 letter, which was meant to notify Woods of the status of the case, also included Cardwell's version of events.
Cardwell, who is represented by attorneys David Jeffries and Martin Restituyo, said in his part of the letter that the defendants sought to "isolate" him and said the partners who were supposed to be helping him improve "refused to communicate with plaintiff and were central to the unlawful treatment plaintiff had experienced and complained about."
In his complaint, Cardwell included claims for violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and for racial discrimination, retaliation and harassment under city and state civil-rights laws.
Davis Polk said it would likely seek dismissal of Cardwell's claims, saying his Title VII claims can't be maintained against the individual defendants and because "many" of them were filed too late. The firm also indicated it might argue that Cardwell's decision to take his claims to the New York State Division of Human Rights and a similar city body "bars him from relitigating these claims in federal court."
Cardwell said in the letter that the NYSDHR dismissed his complaint, citing "administrative convenience," giving him the right to sue.
A conference is slated to take place Friday. In the meantime, Davis Polk said it would be filing an agreement to give it more time to respond to the complaint and asked for the court to pause discovery, citing mediation efforts and a need to protect client confidences.
Neither side responded to requests for comment Monday morning.
Read More:
Ex-Davis Polk Associate Alleges Discrimination, Says He Was Repeatedly Sidelined
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