1981 Law School graduate Francine Griesing filed a class action suit this month against her former employer Greenberg Traurig, LLP on the basis of gender discrimination.
Griesing, who worked in the international law firm’s Philadelphia office from 2007 to 2010 and was a shareholder, is asking for around $1 million in lost pay and damages. Though she is the only plaintiff in the class action lawsuit, she said over 200 other current or former female shareholders could join, increasing the amount to $200 million.
In 2009, Griesing filed gender discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and was subsequently asked to leave by the law firm, according to her complaint.
After an investigation, the Philadelphia District Office of the EEOC found that Griesing was underpaid by $50,000 compared to men holding similar positions and that there was reasonable cause to believe the firm had violated employment discrimination laws.
Griesing alleges she was underpaid by approximately $100,000 in her 2008 bonus, was given less opportunities and overall was treated differently by her superiors because of her gender.
The complaint states that GT CEO Richard Rosenbaum once told Griesing that female shareholders were “worthless.” Moreover, the complaint claims that Philadelphia office head Michael Lehr said only “tall, male and Jewish” lawyers brought business to the company.
The complaint accuses GT of “openly mak[ing] compensation decisions based on assumptions that men were responsible for financially supporting a family.”
Griesing also alleged that women in top roles in the company often had intimate relations with male leaders.
Hilarie Bass, a GT executive committee member, responded in a statement that the lawsuit was “an affront to the accomplished, talented women of Greenberg Traurig, who, like all of our lawyers, are compensated based on merit.”
She called Griesing’s complaint “a financially motivated publicity stunt without merit.”
“Our history of recruiting, retaining, and promoting women [at] our law firm reflects that,” she added.
The firm has filed a petition in the Philadelphia federal court to compel arbitration.
After leaving GT, Griesing opened up her own practice in Philadelphia, where she lives with her husband and former classmate, 1981 Penn Law graduate David Griesing.
“As a student, Fran was very bright and dynamic, as she appears to be now,” Penn Law Professor Emeritus Robert Gorman, who taught when Griesing was a student, said in an email. Griesing graduated cum laude.
At first, Griesing didn’t plan to open her own practice, but Griesing Law now employs eight attorneys.
“[Starting a law firm] did not cross my mind when I entered Penn Law School [and] for most of the 28 years that followed, I insisted that I would never go out on my own,” she wrote in a published letter to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession.
“Expecting others to take care of your career, promote you, or make your professional dreams come true is only a crutch. You need to be able to stand alone.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, female lawyers in 2011 earned on average over $250 — or 13 percent – — less per week than their male counterparts.
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