Biglaw firm Fox Rothschild is facing an age discrimination lawsuit filed by one of its former partners, Michael Kline. The onetime equity partner and corporate department chair says at age 73 he was pushed into an income partner role — with the commiserate pay cut. Eventually, Kline alleges he was forced to retire from that role, and the one he’d taken on as assistant general counsel for the firm, when his contract for fiscal year 2024 wasn’t renewed.
The lawsuit, filed last week in New Jersey state court against the firm and former managing partner Mark Morris, alleges that although the firm has eliminated its mandatory retirement age, they still put restrictions on older partners. According to the suit, after age 72, Kline was forced into a role with reduced compensation and subject to yearly renewal. As reported by Law.com:
Kline alleges that these restrictions were enforced for him at the end of March 2018, when he was moved to an income partner position and had his salary cut to $200,000 per year. By contrast, the firm’s profits per equity partner in 2018 were $697,000, according to ALM data.
Kline took another salary cut, according to the suit, in 2019, dropping to $150,000 per year despite Kline taking on an assistant general counsel role at the firm and continuing on as vice chair of the firm’s opinions committee.
According to Kline, Morris then explained the compensation reductions given that he was “the second most highly compensated person in the (Office of General Counsel), thereby indicating that there was not sufficient money available in the OGC budget. … As even more evidence of the discriminatory conduct, Morris told Plaintiff, ‘You will never receive a raise.’”
Kline continued in this reduced role until 2023 when his direct supervisor informed him “that the Firm would not be renewing (his) contract at Morris’s directive and that his termination would become effective June 2023 in order to allow Plaintiff time to provide training for the multiple Firm Partners who would be assigned to resume (Kline’s) responsibilities at the firm.” Kline says he complained that this was a discriminatory move, and was given an extension to 2024, but that new contract barred any further extension.
The firm got a new managing partner, Todd Rodriguez, in April 2023. Kline says he asked Rodriguez to reconsider the issue of renewing his contract. During that conversation, Kline alleges he was told to “hang up (his) spurs.” A statement the complaint calls “a callous and discriminatory remark directed toward someone who had dedicated almost three decades to the Firm and continued to be a highly regarded Partner.”
Fox Rothschild has not commented on the case.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
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