Gibbons in Newark, New Jersey.

In a win for the firm, a gender bias suit brought by a former Gibbons lawyer against the firm is headed to arbitration.

Jennifer Seme sued Gibbons in February, alleging that she was wrongly fired because she is a woman. On Wednesday, U.S. District Senior Judge John Padova of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted Gibbons' motion to compel arbitration.

Gibbons, a midsize firm based in New Jersey, argued that because Seme signed an arbitration agreement, the dispute cannot be litigated in federal court.

Seme argued that the arbitration agreement she signed was unconscionable, and therefore invalid. “Defendant now seeks to have its unlawful conduct towards plaintiff hidden by forcing plaintiff to litigate her claims in a private, confidential arbitral process,” Seme's response to the motion said.

But Gibbons countered that she was ”a sophisticated party with six years of experience as an attorney when she signed the arbitration agreement,” so that argument should fail.

The court said Gibbons' arbitration agreement was not unconscionable, even if the firm had greater bargaining power than Seme.

“Plaintiff has a graduate degree in law and, thus, was particularly well-positioned not only to understand the meaning of the arbitration agreement, but also to seek to negotiate its terms if she believed them to be contrary to her interests,” Padova wrote in a 13-page opinion.

The court also denied Seme's request for stay to take discovery on the validity of the arbitration agreement.

Seme alleged in her complaint that she was abruptly fired last year, and that she had been under-compensated compared to her male peers.

“Plaintiff was subjected to a sex-biased pay and promotion system utilized by defendant during her approximately eight years of employment as an associate attorney,” her complaint said. “Despite strong performance throughout her employment, she was paid substantially less than her peers, the majority of whom were male.”

She started working at Gibbons in 2010, when she joined as a lateral associate.

Seme's complaint said she received positive performance appraisals for her work, and was recognized by other organizations as well—the suit noted that she was selected by The Legal Intelligencer as a Lawyer on the Fast Track.

However, Seme alleged that Gibbons awarded male associates origination credit for matters on which they were supervised, while she was not given origination credit for matters on which she had little or no supervision, or when the client specifically referred the matter to her.

“Defendant's male directors often shared their own origination credit with male associates in an effort to assist male associates with business development and their prospects for promotion, while no such effort was made with plaintiffs or other female associates,” the complaint alleged.

Seme also noted that there were no female directors in the Philadelphia office, and only two of the 12 lawyers there during her employment were women.

She alleged that the firm promoted male associates with lesser professional accomplishments to director. But when she asked about being promoted, the complaint said, she was told she “'should be happy' if defendant promoted her to 'of counsel.'” Seme also complained to the firm multiple times about her pay being unequal to that of her peers, the complaint said.

In July 2018, the complaint said, Seme was fired from the firm, but the firm asked her to stay into September. At the end of that July, the firm hired a male associate in Philadelphia, who she was instructed to train.

“On or about August 9, 2018, when defendant learned that plaintiff would not be signing a release of all legal claims against defendant, defendant terminated her employment, effective that day,” the complaint said.

Sara Begley of Holland & Knight, one of the lawyers representing Gibbons, said in a statement Wednesday: “Gibbons is pleased that the court granted its motion to compel arbitration and that the procedure to resolve disputes that was agreed to by the parties will be followed.”

Kate Oeltjen of Console Mattiacci Law, who represents Seme, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.