Ogletree Deakins Hit with $300M Gender Bias Suit

Employment defense firm Ogletree Deakins was hit with a $300,000,000 lawsuit on Friday by a female shareholder alleging the firm underpays its women lawyers by denying them origination credit, excluding them from business development and saddling them with administrative tasks.

In a class action complaint filed in the Northern District of California, Ogletree shareholder Dawn Knepper accused the firm’s mostly-male leadership of discriminating against women and fostering a culture that “marginalizes, demeans, and undervalues” them.

Knepper alleges the firm’s two-tiered shareholder system, which includes equity and non-equity shareholders, keeps women from being paid fairly based on their contributions to the ...