On Jan. 28, 2010, the venerable firm of Kelley Drye & Warren was hit with an age discrimination suit by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of its partners aged 70 and above. The complaint alleges that under Kelley Drye’s partnership agreement, attorneys reaching the age of 70 must (1) give up their equity interest in the firm; (2) relinquish their authority to manage or significantly influence the firm; and (3) be compensated via a wholly discretionary bonus payment decided upon by the firm’s executive committee.
The situation Kelley Drye finds itself in is not new. In 2007, Sidley Austin paid $27.5 million to end an age discrimination suit brought by the EEOC on behalf of 32 former partners. That settlement certainly reverberated within the large law firm community in the following months, as Dewey & LeBoeuf, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and others eliminated their age-based limitations on partnership status.
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