DLA Piper Set to Face Jury Trial Over Pregnancy Bias Claims by Ex-associate

Law firm DLA Piper is set to face a jury trial in federal court in Manhattan on Monday over claims that it dismissed an associate for seeking maternity leave, marking a rare opportunity for a jury to hear an employment discrimination case against a major law firm.

Anisha Mehta said she was dismissed in 2022 from her position as a senior associate in the firm’s intellectual property group in San Francisco and New York when she was six months pregnant, less than a week after she requested leave.

Mehta sought an unspecified amount of damages in her 2023 lawsuit, which alleges that DLA Piper did not wish to pay her at a time when the firm was handling less legal work and facing pressure from clients over billing rates.

Her lawyers at New York-based employment law firm Wigdor will face off at trial against attorneys from DLA Piper and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. DLA Piper has argued that Mehta’s dismissal was justified, stating that she was unable to perform at the level expected of a seventh-year associate.

Attorneys for Mehta, who is now a global products counsel at eBay, according to her LinkedIn profile, declined to comment. Wigdor is pursuing separate employment-related claims against two other large law firms, McDermott Will & Schulte and Troutman Pepper Locke, for different plaintiffs. Those firms have denied wrongdoing.

A spokesperson for DLA Piper did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US District Judge Analisa Torres ruled in September that Mehta’s discrimination claims under New York City, state and federal law, as well as her claims of interference and retaliation under the Family and Medical Leave Act, could proceed to trial.

The judge said DLA Piper’s performance-based rationale for dismissing Mehta was “at best, in tension with other evidence in the record or, at worst, plainly contradicted by it,” citing the raises and bonuses Mehta had received and her work with an important client.

 

Carolin Guentert, a partner at employment law firm Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight who is not involved in the case, said attorneys who claim discrimination and their employers each have reasons to prefer avoiding litigation and a potential trial.

“Lawyers know better than most how long, challenging and personal a case can be,” she said, adding that a trial can publicly reveal a law firm’s internal workings, including details about bonus, evaluation and termination policies.

“That’s all very sensitive,” she said.

Guentert’s firm previously brought a series of lawsuits alleging gender-related discrimination at major corporate law firms, including Jones Day, Morrison & Foerster and Proskauer Rose. Those lawsuits ended in settlements or voluntary dismissals.

Davis Polk & Wardwell in January 2024 prevailed in a trial before a Manhattan federal jury on claims by one of its former associates that the firm dismissed him in 2018 for complaining about alleged racial discrimination.