The law firm of Leeds Morelli & Brown has recently been embroiled in controversy over episodes in which it has settled batches of employment discrimination claims while contemporaneously entering agreements in which the defendants agree to hire it (the Leeds Morelli firm) for substantial sums. Now an African-American woman who was once a vice president at Prudential Insurance and then sued the company for racial bias as a Leeds Morelli client “is asking a federal judge to set aside an arbitration award, alleging her lawyers were given improper financial inducement to keep her claim and hundreds of others out of court. According to Linda Guyden, the company paid $5 million to the law firm representing her and 358 other employees, in return for which Prudential’s total exposure was capped at $10 million and the claims were kept secret just as the company was about to be taken public.” (Mary Pat Gallagher, “Bias Plaintiff Says Lawyer Sell-Out Warrants Vacating of Arbitration”, New Jersey Law Journal, Apr. 8). For a cognate controversy over Leeds Morelli’s settlement of employment claims with Nextel Corp., see Leigh Jones, “Columbia’s Simon Blasts Professors’ Role in Nextel Bias Case”, National Law Journal, Nov. 26; Bluestone, New York Attorney Malpractice Blog, Feb. 12, 2007.

Filed under: arbitration, ethics, New Jersey, workplace