Jones Day Slams Its Prized Hires—Smart Tactic?

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Oh, how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!

Maybe that's how Jones Day and managing partner Stephen Brogan felt about Mark Savignac's Jan. 16 email to the firm. How else to explain the firm's harsh handling of Savignac and his wife, Julia Sheketoff, both onetime star hires at the firm (they clerked for the U.S. Supreme Court), who are now suing Jones Day?

In the email, Savignac, then an associate, reiterated his belief that the firm's leave policy was discriminatory, adding: "Give me the treatment that Jones Day gives all women with new children—18 weeks of paid leave and six weeks of unpaid leave—or else I will file a charge with EEOC and then a class-action lawsuit, and the matter will be decided in the D.C. Circuit and in the court of public opinion."