A $300 million gender discrimination lawsuit brought by a former nonequity shareholder at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart has reached its end in California federal court.

With a three-page stipulation, Ogletree and its former lawyer Dawn Knepper agreed to dismiss claims that the labor and employment specialty law firm "systematically overlooks, devalues, or undermines female attorneys as business generators, which adversely impacts their pay and promotion."

The dismissal of the lawsuit came about 11 months after U.S. District Judge James Selna of the Central District of California routed the case to arbitration. The stipulation stated that nearly all of the claims from Knepper's second amended complaint would be dismissed with prejudice, and both sides will pay their own attorney fees and costs.

"Knepper was on notice that if she did not opt-out, she would be bound to arbitrate. Since she continued working at Ogletree after March 1, 2016 without opting out, she was bound by the terms of the arbitration agreement," Selna wrote in a March 26, 2019, order.

At this point, no one is saying why the case is being dismissed, including whether a settlement had been reached. Knepper's attorneys at Sanford Heisler Sharp declined to comment; Ogletree's attorneys at Paul Hastings did not respond to requests for comment as of press time.

Knepper, now a shareholder at Buchalter, told The American Lawyer in October 2018 that she was compelled to sue her former firm because she believed she had been mistreated.

"I felt I had exhausted every outlet within the firm to try and raise my concerns. I had experienced discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and a hostile work environment, which was really difficult," Knepper said.

At one point during the proceedings, Knepper was joined by three former nonequity Ogletree shareholders—Jocelyn Campanaro, Angelica Ochoa and Alicia Voltmer, all of whom said they experienced the same kind of gender discrimination Knepper experienced. They withdrew from the case in July, according to court records.

Sanford Heisler has mounted a litigation campaign against law firms over claims of gender bias and discrimination, going up against Jones Day and Morrison & Foerster in lawsuits estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Judge Rules Plaintiff in Ogletree Gender Discrimination Suit Bound by Arbitration Agreement