Judge Doubts King & Spalding Account Of Associate's Firing
By Pete Brush
Law360, New York (July 28, 2017, 2:57 PM EDT) -- U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni expressed doubt Friday over the assertion by King & Spalding LLP that it fired a senior associate because he failed to turn in time sheets and business plans on time, in his suit claiming he was shown the door for reporting an ethics breach.
The Manhattan federal judge's comments came as she huddled with the sides to ask whether the defendant law firm and plaintiff David A. Joffe have had settlement discussions or wanted discovery on damages.
“We are pretty far apart,” Joffe's counsel, Andrew M. Moskowitz of Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wikstrom & Sinins PC, said regarding a settlement.
Judge Caproni — an erstwhile Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP associate — then said that in her experience, senior associates like Joffe do not get fired for the reasons the law firm has stated.
“I've never heard of anybody being discharged for turning in diaries late,” the judge said. “Maybe things have changed.”
King & Spalding says that Joffe, who joined the firm in 2012, was told in December 2015 that he would not make partner.
He was terminated in December 2016 and filed suit in May.
Joffe claims he was fired not long after he raised concerns about allegedly false statements made in 2014 by two firm partners, Robert F. Perry and Paul A. Straus, on behalf of then-client ZTE Corp. The statements denied that the client company improperly shared confidential information about a litigation adversary.
Those statements — made to U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, well-known as a tough judge — generated a July 2015 order for the two partners to show cause why they should not be sanctioned.
The ZTE litigation closed via a settlement later that year, after the law firm moved to withdraw.
In July and August 2015, Joffe says, he reported the conduct to King & Spalding's general counsel as a possible ethics breach. Joffe says he began to experience adverse employment actions, such as being taken off the partner track, soon thereafter.
King & Spalding has countered among other things that Joffe never raised ethical questions in real time and that he stated in emails to other firm personnel that he did not think his two former bosses intentionally misled Judge Kaplan.
On Friday, Judge Caproni tasked the sides with conducting orderly discovery in the coming months and set a Nov. 3 follow-up conference to discuss possible motions.
“Try to get along with each other,” she said.
Judge Caproni's comments suggested that the law firm might face an uphill battle on a motion to dismiss.
Counsel for the parties had no comment after the hearing.
Joffe is represented by Andrew M. Moskowitz of Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wikstrom & Sinins PC.
King & Spalding is represented by Joseph Baumgarten and Pinchos Goldberg of Proskauer Rose LLP.
The case is Joffe v. King & Spalding LLP, case number 1:17-cv-03392, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
--Editing by Edrienne Su.
AI
