Kirkland Argues for Records From Fired Associate’s Former Firms

Personnel records from two former Big Law employers are necessary for Kirkland & Ellis to defend against a discrimination suit brought by a female former associate, a lawyer representing the firm said.

The performance review and termination documents from Fish & Richardson and Paul Hastings could elaborate on “specific criticisms” former employers may have had with the former associate, Zoya Kovalenko, said Joseph Liburt, an Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe partner serving as outside counsel to Kirkland.

Judge Thomas Hixson with the US District Court for the Northern District of California said at the end of a hearing Thursday he would rule on the Kirkland request via a written order at a future date.

Kovalenko, who worked as an intellectual property litigation associate with Kirkland in northern California for 10 months in 2020 and 2021 before being fired, claims she faced discrimination that included being swamped with work when compared to male IP associates and that she was paid less than comparable male lawyers at the firm.

She also claimed that she was forced to work during planned time off so that a male associate could enjoy his week-long vacation “undisturbed,” according to the amended complaint she filed last September. She claims she was fired unlawfully and “based on a sham and hijacked ‘review’ process.”

Kovalenko’s attorney, Tanvir Rahman, managing partner of the employment law firm Filippatos PLLC in White Plains, New York, argued during the Thursday hearing that to allow Kirkland to subpoena Kovalenko’s former firm documents would “essentially create a trial within a trial” and open “a big can of worms.”

Rahman said Kovalenko had been in therapy since leaving Kirkland but that he was not aware of any medical treatments that she needed to be administered as a result of her associate work with the firm. Kovalenko had said in her amended complaint that Kirkland’s defamation of her “caused and has continued to cause Plaintiff severe emotional, psychological, and physical harm and injury.”

In August, the court ruled that a sexual harassment claim can be based on official job actions such as personnel management decisions. It also found that performance reviews Kovalenko received during her 10-month stint at Kirkland supported a claim for defamation under California law.

Kovalenko initially sued the firm pro se in October of 2022, though she has since retained Filippatos as well as employment attorneys with Hennig Kramer Ruiz & Singh in Los Angeles. Liburt confirmed during the hearing that no depositions had yet been taken, and that a motion to dismiss the case is pending before the court.

The case is Kovalenko v. Kirkland & Ellis LLP, N.D. Cal., No. 4:22-cv-05990, complaint filed 10/12/22.