For any lawyer, engineering a complete turnaround for a key client facing a nationwide class action would make a banner year. But in 2014, Seyfarth Shaw labor and employment partner Gerald Maatman Jr. also struck lethal blows to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s biggest discrimination suits, getting clients out from under cases that put their reputations and market shares at risk.
The EEOC had levied claims of widespread gender discrimination at Sterling Jewelers Inc., a multibrand company with stores in malls across the country, and it continued to pursue the headline-grabbing allegations that Kaplan Higher Education Corp. systematically discriminated against black job applicants by using credit histories in the hiring process.
