Kirkland & Ellis Loses Ground in Fired Female Lawyer’s Bias Case

Kirkland & Ellis LLP and some of its partners lost much of their fight for a federal court to dismiss a female former associate’s claims of gender discrimination.

The court in large part rejected Kirkland’s efforts to end Zoya Kovalenko’s lawsuit alleging sex and pay bias, including denials of a motion to dismiss on all but one ground. It also turned down the firm’s request for consideration of previous dismissal rulings and for relief from a pretrial order, which denied the firm’s bid to gain access to personnel records from her previous firms.

“There already has been more than enough ...