Davis Polk Lawyer Says Partners Less Diverse Than Trump Judges

A Black former associate accusing Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP of race bias and retaliation amended his lawsuit in Manhattan on Tuesday, including additional allegations to both support his remaining claims against the law firm and to spark new life into previously dismissed claims.

Kaloma Cardwell sued the firm and some of its partners in November 2019 after he was fired following four years as an associate in Davis Polk’s New York office. He was the only Black man hired to join Davis Polk’s 120-member 2014 associate class and just one of four Black lawyers among that group, Cardwell says in the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The firm’s workplace systems are rigged against Black attorneys and it weaponized its performance evaluation and review processes against Cardwell, the suit alleges.

Cardwell complained repeatedly, but that just spurred retaliation and more race bias, including the failure to assign him new work—causing his billable hours to shrink to just two hours for three consecutive months at one point—and isolating him, the suit says.

“It is also a fact that for almost all of Davis Polk’s history, including Plaintiff’s entire tenure at Davis Polk, the degree of racial diversity among Davis Polk’s partnership has been roughly on par or worse than the degree of racial diversity among Donald Trump’s judicial appointees, Cardwell says in the 171-page second amended complaint.

Cardwell says he isn’t equating Davis Polk lawyers to “Donald Trump” and that “the overwhelming majority of Davis Polk’s partners do not hate Black people or people of color.” But some of them have demonstrated that they’re willing and capable of engineering employment processes that undermine and discriminate against Black attorneys, he says in the new filing.

Davis Polk says it invested “enormous time and effort” in Cardwell’s development as a lawyer and only fired him when it became clear after three years he wasn’t up to the job. The firm has filed motions to dismiss in response to both his initial and first amended complaint.

The second amended complaint also names corporate/mergers and acquisitions group partners John Bick, William Chudd, Sophia Hudson, Harold Birnbaum, Daniel Brass, Brian Wolfe, John Butler, and Davis Polk’s managing partner, Thomas Reid, as defendants.

All claims against Chudd, Hudson, Birnbaum, Brass, Wolfe, and Butler were previously dismissed by Judge Gregory H. Woods in an Oct. 26 ruling, except for retaliation claims against Birnbaum, Brass, and Wolfe related to Cardwell’s firing.

Cardwell’s hostile work environment claim was likewise dismissed, but the judge granted him leave to amend to try to salvage the dismissed claims, except for his harassment claims under the New York State Human Rights Law and his aiding-and-abetting claims under 42 U.S.C. §1981.

The court allowed Cardwell to go forward with the rest of his claims against Davis Polk, and partners Reid and Bick.

The new complaint includes claims for race discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Section 1981, the NYSHRL, and the New York City Human Rights Law. It also includes aiding and abetting race discrimination and retaliation claims under the NYSHRL and the NYCHRL.

Cardwell seeks compensatory and punitive damages, together with attorney fees and litigation costs. The University of California Berkeley School of Law graduate says he was hotly recruited by Davis Polk in an effort to enhance its diversity profile.

He was a “1L Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD) Scholar” in 2012 and is a life member of the NAACP, the National Bar Association, the Metropolitan Black Bar Association, the African American Intellectual History Society, and the National Association of Black Journalists, according to the second amended complaint.

Cardwell is also a former co-chair of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association’s Civil Rights Committee and a former member of both the New York City Bar Association’s Civil Rights Committee and that organization’s Diversity Pipeline Initiatives Committee, the suit says.

David Jeffries of New York represents Cardwell. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP represents Davis Polk and the individual defendants.

The case is Cardwell v. Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:19-cv-10256, second amended complaint 11/10/20.