Law Firm Lewis Brisbois Settles Racial Discrimination Lawsuit with Former Partner

by Pooja Chauhan · 30/07/2024

Law firm Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith has settled a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by former partner Robert Lofton, who cited offensive emails from ex-practice leaders. Settlement terms remain undisclosed.

Los Angeles, Bollywood Fever: Law firm Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith has settled a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a former Black partner, Robert Lofton, who highlighted offensive emails from the firm’s previous practice leaders, according to court documents.

On Monday, Lofton’s attorneys filed a notice with the Los Angeles Superior Court, indicating that a final settlement had been reached last week. The notice did not disclose the settlement terms.

Neither Lofton nor his lawyers responded to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Los Angeles-founded Lewis Brisbois, which has 1,600 lawyers, also declined to comment.

Law Firm Lewis Brisbois Settles Racial Discrimination Lawsuit with Former Partner

Lofton claimed that Lewis Brisbois withheld his pay for several months and marginalized his practice following complications from a medical procedure in December 2022 that required him to miss several days of work. He stated that he resigned from the firm in October 2023.

According to Lofton, his direct superiors were John Barber, a former leader of the firm’s employment practice, and Jeffrey Ranen, a former national vice chair of the employment practice. After Barber and Ranen departed from Lewis Brisbois to start a new firm, the company revealed numerous internal emails between the two that contained racial, sexual, and homophobic slurs directed at colleagues and others.

The emails “included ‘gratuitous use’ of the n-word,” Lofton said in his lawsuit, citing examples previously reported by news outlets.

Lofton joined Lewis Brisbois in November 2022, with an arrangement allowing remote work and a guaranteed base salary of $260,000. However, he alleged that Ranen denied him the ability to work remotely and personally took over his cases. The lawsuit claimed that Lofton was “set up to fail” when the firm reassigned his cases and withheld his pay due to “Barber and Ranen’s discriminatory animus.”

Barber and Ranen, who were not named as defendants in the lawsuit, issued public apologies after their emails were disclosed in June. They did not respond to requests for comment.

Lewis Brisbois did not formally respond to Lofton’s lawsuit by the September 16 deadline. In March, the firm stated it was evaluating Lofton’s claims and emphasized its “strong record of taking action to correct and prevent any instances of harmful behavior.”