SAN FRANCISCO — A former office assistant in Arnold & Porter’s San Francisco office has sued the firm and the staffing agency that placed her, saying she was fired after supervisors learned she was pregnant. Salena Wright filed a wrongful termination and gender discrimination suit in San Francisco Superior Court last week, alleging the firm and the agency, Williams Lea, Inc., declined to make her employment permanent after she became pregnant during a three-month probationary period earlier this year. The suit claims a male supervisor told her to keep quiet about her pregnancy and peppered her with questions like “Are you able to do the work” and “Have you told anyone at Arnold & Porter?”
Less than two months into her job as an office services assistant working for $15 per hour, Wright learned she was pregnant and informed her supervisors, who were employees of Williams Lea, according to her complaint, which was filed September 18. Her supervisors told her to keep her pregnancy a secret from the staff at Arnold & Porter, according to the complaint.
