Let’s start with the plaintiffs team led by Kelly Dermody of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein and Adam Klein of Outten & Golden who reached a settlement this week with Goldman Sachs in the long-running class action accusing the bank of discriminating against women in both pay and promotions. The bank agreed to pay $215 million to settle claims brought on behalf of about 2,800 female associates and vice presidents employed in its investment banking, investment management or securities divisions over a roughly 20-year period. As part of the deal, Goldman also agreed to bring on independent experts to evaluate its performance review process and gender pay disparities. The team representing the plaintiffs also includes Outten & Golden’s Cara Greene and Christopher McNerney and Lieff Cabraser’s Anne Shaver and Rachel Geman.
Runners-up honors go to Brian Kelly and Joshua Sharp from Nixon Peabody who got a First Circuit ruling this week vacating the conviction of their client Gamal Abdelaziz, who was prosecuted as part of the government’s “Varsity Blues” probe into college admissions. A unanimous First Circuit panel this week held that admissions slots don’t always qualify as “property” for purposes of the mail and wire fraud statutes. The court further found the government failed to prove that Abdelaziz and his codefendant John Wilson, represented by lawyers at Jones Day, White & Case and McLaughlin & Stern, agreed to join a conspiracy with college admissions consult Rick Singer, the government’s key cooperator whom prosecutors opted not to call as a witness at trial. (The First Circuit, however, upheld Wilson’s conviction for filing a false tax return.) The Nixon Peabody team representing Abdelaziz also includes associate Lauren Maynard and e-discovery director Mike Swiatocha.
