Ex-Jones Day Couple Taps DC Litigator for Showdown With Firm

The married lawyers suing Jones Day over the firm’s parental leave policy have hired well-known litigator Alexandra Walsh as the long-running dispute heads toward a jury trial.

“This is a case about standing up to unfair treatment of a very powerful entity’s employees,” Walsh said Friday. “I feel really confident that a jury will agree that what happened here was discriminatory and retaliatory,” Walsh said.

Former Jones Day lawyers Marc Savignac and Julia Sheketoff accuse the firm of discriminating against men by giving them eight fewer parental leave weeks than women get for the addition of a child. They also say Jones Day retaliated against the couple after Savignac complained about the policy.

The case is currently set for trial in November 2025. A federal judge in September cleared the path, rejecting the firm’s motion for summary judgment on the claims.

Jones Day, which has been representing itself in the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Walsh, who filed an appearance in the case this week, is the first outside lawyer hired to represent the couple since they filed the case in 2019.

A former partner at Baker Botts and Paul Weiss, Walsh this year merged her boutique law firm with Anapol Weiss, a majority female-owned law firm known for personal injury and mass tort lawsuits.
She serves on committees heading massive suits against Uber Technologies Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.

In the Jones Day litigation, the parties have most recently been fighting over whether the firm should be forced to disclose to a jury a 1993 memo from its then-human resources director regarding its adoption of a eight-week disability leave for new mothers.

The firm argues the memo is privileged, while the couple says the privilege was waived when the firm made it part of its defense of the claims.

“We’re looking forward to trial,” Walsh said.

The case is Savignac v. Jones Day, D.D.C., 1:19 -cv-02443, 12/17/24.