Firm Defends Dropping Columbia Professor Over Israel-Gaza Speech

Employment law firm Outten & Golden, facing a complaint for dropping its representation of a Columbia Law School professor, said it decided not to handle employee speech matters tied to the Israel-Gaza conflict.

“We did this after much consideration, and with the good of our firm and the well-being of our diverse workforce in mind,” Outten & Golden said in a statement Wednesday.

The professor, Katherine Franke, filed a complaint Sept. 10 with the Attorney Grievance Committee in New York saying that about two months earlier, Outten & Golden had “out of nowhere” told her it was dropping her as a client. Franke said she had signed a retainer agreement in February for the firm to represent her in a harassment complaint she faced at Columbia over comments she made in a TV interview over student protests.

Columbia and other US universities and colleges struggled to control a wave of pro-Palestine encampments and other on-campus demonstrations tied to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, and over Israel’s response in Gaza and in other areas.

Outten & Golden, which according to its website specializes in protecting and promoting employee rights, said in its statement that “because of the unique nature of the Israel-Gaza conflict, and the immense passion and pain that it can conjure, the firm made the deliberate decision not to handle matters arising from employee speech related to the conflict.”

‘Circumvention’ of Rules

The firm said its decision to withdraw from the case also stemmed from the “circumvention of our rules for undertaking such representations” by one of its former attorneys, Kathleen Peratis. According to the professor’s complaint, Franke first contacted Peratis “to discuss whether she, and Outten & Golden, would represent me. She agreed, and I signed a retainer agreement.”

Peratis said in a letter to the grievance committee dated the same day as Franke’s complaint that she resigned from Outten & Golden on Aug. 8 after nearly 24 years at the firm. She said the firm “disengaged from the matter because they believed that Professor Franke had become politically controversial” and that the move was unethical. “I would have been complicit in the unethical conduct had I remained” at the firm, she said in her letter.

In an interview Wednesday, Peratis said she continues to represent Franke through her work at the nonpartisan Center for Constitutional Rights. She said Outten & Golden’s contention that she circumvented firm rules for undertaking representations is “absolutely, flatly false.”

Franke declined to comment beyond sharing a copy of her ethics complaint, Peratis’ letter and other documents. The Attorney Grievance Committee didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Franke on Wednesday took to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to discuss her complaint. “How @OuttenGolden treated me is part of a larger profession-wide problem, a McCarthy-ite reprisal against anyone who defends the dignity and rights of Palestinians,” she said in one of her posts.

“I felt it was important to link @OuttenGolden’s unethical conduct toward me to a wider problem in the legal profession, borne particularly by my law students,” she added.

The law firm said in its statement, “We carefully considered our ethical obligations before withdrawing, and our decision was not based on the views of Ms. Franke or Columbia University.”