SAN FRANCISCO Lawyers for Ellen Pao say that the former Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner should be allowed to litigate her claims of gender discrimination in open court because her employment wasn’t governed by a contract with an arbitration agreement. And a separate set of contracts she signed that contain arbitration agreements are void because they are unconscionable, they say.
Those arguments from Pao’s lawyer, Alan Exelrod of Rudy, Exelrod, Zieff & Lowe, came in a filing Monday at the First District Court of Appeal. Kleiner Perkins, represented by Lynne Hermle of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, is asking the appeal court to reverse San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn’s denial of a motion to compel arbitration.
