A former Juul in-house lawyer charges in a lawsuit that after she returned from maternity leave the e-cigarette company took a series of small steps that added up to a substantial reduction in her authority before finally laying her off in May 2020.

The allegations in Elizabeth Johannessen’s pregnancy-discrimination suit closely align with what legal observers and attorneys who bring such cases say they’re seeing in the trenches: While the days of supervisors making blatantly discriminatory statements or taking overt steps to derail careers may be largely over, pregnancy discrimination is still a serious problem and remains remarkably common.