Revenge served ice cold? Top L.A. law firm outs former partners' racist, sexist emails

[tenderfoot]

Last month, Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard and Smith, one of the nation’s largest law firms, was rocked by the announcement that two top partners were starting their own boutique practice and taking as many as 140 colleagues with them.

The shock inside Lewis Brisbois’ downtown Los Angeles headquarters soon gave way to anger as the recently departed partners embarked on a press campaign that portrayed their former employer as a profit-focused legal mill that ground down the aspirations of its lawyers.

In an extraordinary move, its management team directed the release of scores of emails in which Barber and Ranen used vile terms for women, Black people, Armenians, Persians, and gay men and traded in offensive stereotypes of Jews and Asians. In one fell swoop, the venerable firm managed to torpedo its new rival, destroy the defecting partners’ careers and send the legal establishment reeling.

The emails, stretching back 15 years, were head-spinning in their coarseness and vitriol. A Superior Court judge was called “Sugar Tits.” Multiple female lawyers were referred to as “c—t.” The epithets “fag” and “faggot” were deployed as all-purpose insults. An Asian job applicant was denigrated for the supposed size of his genitalia. Ranen dismissed another job candidate with, “How about someone who’s not a Jew.”

By Monday, the emails had been excerpted by the New York Post and the Forward, a Jewish newspaper, and the nascent firm Barber Ranen had collapsed.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-06-07/revenge-delivered-ice-cold-top-l-a-law-firm-outs-former-partners-racist-sexist-emails

[leftieNanner]

1. FAFO!

Times a Brazilian.

Between this story and CNN, I'm enjoying my coffee this morning.

[ananda]

5. Yes, it has been a fun morning!

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

23. the racist/sexist pigs don't know what hit them!

[Scottie Mom]

41. CAL BAR -- Links to atty profiles

Barber:

https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/160317

Ranen:

https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/224285

[Renew Deal]

2. The old firm tolerated this until they broke away

[AltairIV]

3. Agreed.

Bingo!

[TxGuitar]

4. Exactly.

Like Texas republicans were fine with Paxton until he asked them to pay his bills. Then they had a problem. Same here.

[RainCaster]

6. That's my thought on this, too

[Silent3]

8. Yep, which probably means many of the remaining lawyers...

...are just as vile, or at best too tolerant of intolerance.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

11. We'll get to them... next.

[yardwork]

22. And we wonder why Trump was elected.

[SYFROYH]

30. It makes me wonder if they made themselves vulnerable to suits.

Especially those emails related to workplace harassment and hiring discrimination.

[CaptainTruth]

32. Yep. Emails go back 15 years.

Did they know about this for years & do nothing about it?

This makes me wonder about the attorneys that are still with the firm!

[BonnieJW]

37. Exactly

Where were these wonderful attorneys who are the senior partners these past 15 years? What was their reaction when women were being called denigrating names? What did they do when racial slurs were flying? Doesn't say much for the original firm.

[dalton99a]

40. +1. A very important point.

[quakerboy]

42. That would seem to be the second takeaway

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. What, those emails were only between the two partners who left? Sure.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. Good Point

They seemed awfully simple to track down, too. In a firm that big, seems they'd be looking for a needle in a haystack.
Unless, of course, it was very common & widely distributed so everybody in management already knew.

[Spazito]

9. "A plague on both your houses"...

is apt in this case, imo. The larger law firm had no problem with their partners being racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, etc. until two of them decided to leave. The two that left are putrid and deserve everything that happens to them, imo.

The quote I used is from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.

[Yavin4]

10. As a veteran support staffer in big law firms...

I would be more shocked when a partner wasn't racist and sexist.

[Casady1]

15. As a vendor to big law firms

I always have thought most firms were pretty professional. I still call into law firms.

[Yavin4]

16. Appearance wise.

Trust me. They're scumbags.

[Casady1]

19. I'm talking about the

IT department. I also was very involved in white collar crime and was invited to Rudy Guiliani's introduction at the White Collar conference by Greenberg Trauig.

[Yavin4]

35. IT dept is totally different.

Greenberg Trauig partners?

https://www.reddit.com/r/biglaw/comments/13yeaav/gt_partner_allan_kassenoff/

https://frankreport.com/2023/05/31/catherine-kassenoff-lost-her-kids-home-health-savings-and-life-through-crafty-husband-family-court-play/

[onenote]

43. Recently retired after 40+ years of practice

Spent half of it at two AmLaw 100 firms -- the partners and practices were extremely progressive.

[Yavin4]

44. Lucky you.

Then again, you're probably a White man, so you wouldn't notice the inherent racism and sexism that's been engrained in your institution.

[malaise]

12. Just the old boys' club

A plague on all of them.

[UpInArms]

13. Isn't all that excused as

Locker room talk?

Eta

[GoneOffShore]

27. Here's 'locker room talk' - Tom Hanks as Andrew Beckett

[Sky Jewels]

14. Wow. Any human should know better, especially a lawyer, and ESPECIALLY an L&E lawyer.

They litigate this stuff regularly.

Somehow could understand complex legal issues, but somehow it didn't occur to them that the internet is forever and can bite your butt years later?

What scum. I'm glad their careers have been torpedoed.

And Lewis Brisbois sure has a lot of 'splainin' to do.

[Casady1]

17. I work in ediscovery

and introduced predictive coding to the entire legal market. We call email evidence.

[Sky Jewels]

20. Yes. These two chucklenuts apparently thought e-records didn't apply to them

cuz ... they were special. And white. And males. And not Jewish. And not lowly associates.

[Beachnutt]

18. Revenge is like a fine wine

the older it gets the sweeter it is.

[Behind the Aegis]

21. ...

Part of an email thread between John Barber and Jeff Ranen, two law firm partners who quit Lewis Brisbois on May 2, 2023. Photo by Screenshot/Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith

[Sky Jewels]

24. JFC.

At first glance I thought that was a joke/parody, but noooo...

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

25. "We are ashamed of the words we wrote, and we are deeply sorry." only because your words were shared

with the world

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

26. When a female lawyer asked for upgrades to the firm lactation room, Ranen forwarded it to a male col

When a female lawyer asked for upgrades to the firm lactation room, Ranen forwarded it to a male colleague with speculation about her appearance after bearing two children. He then added, “She could be 200 pounds and acne scarred and after all this time I’d still f— her.”

Jonathan Delshad, an attorney who opposed Lewis Brisbois in a 2016 case, found out from The Times on Tuesday that Ranen had written of him to a co-worker, “Tell him that he’s the reason why most people hate Jews.”

“Kill her by anal penetration,” Barber emailed Ranen in June 2012, reacting to an overtime request from another Lewis Brisbois attorney.

[ProfessorGAC]

29. A Couple Of Real Charmers!

They were partners! This is the kind of people that firm promotes.

[Ford_Prefect]

31. As Grammy Hall used to say, "Mind your manners or you'll pay the piper!"

Oh My Goodness!


(Light years beyond sarcasm)

[Scottie Mom]

33. I have litigated against their LA office.

Last edited Wed Jun 7, 2023, 02:04 PM - Edit history (1)

A bunch of assholes...always. I cannot EVEN begin to tell stories about them. I can say this, however: It seemed to me that their L.A. office would do ANYTHING to win.

Here is a link the the LA DailyJournal...not a paywall here:

https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/373176-attorneys-ousted-from-law-firm-they-created-last-month-after-old-emails-surface

Another link: From the ABA:

https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/leaders-of-lewis-brisbois-rebellion-sent-emails-with-wildly-offensive-language-newspaper-reports

[speak easy]

34. 'Both helped run the labor and employment practice,

defending corporations against harassment and discrimination lawsuits'

WHAT a surprise

[ejbr]

36. Were the 140

who were going with them all white men? Asking for a friend

[Hekate]

38. Well, aren't they special?

[dalton99a]

39. "We are sorry that we put all that in writing"

“Kill her by anal penetration,” John Barber said in reaction to an overtime request from a Lewis Brisbois employee.


John Barber jokes about a calling a female judge “sugar tits.”


John Barber and Jeffrey Ranen sent racist emails shortly after the death of George Floyd.


John Barber casually used the N-word in work emails.