King & Spalding Case Spotlights Response to Ethics Report
Bloomberg Law reports that a ruling that an ex-King & Spalding associate can go to trial on a claim he was fired for raising ethics concerns highlights a critical question for law firms—how to respond to an internal ethics complaint without appearing to retaliate?
A New York federal court rejected King & Spalding’s argument that associate David Joffe clearly was terminated for bad performance and “administrative shortcomings,” and not in retaliation for reporting ethical concerns stemming from two partners’ representation of Chinese telecommunications company ZTE Corp., writes Mindy L. Rattan.
“While most associates are at-will employees, New York associates are protected from retaliation after the associate reports or threatens to report ethical concerns about others in the firm,” according to Rattan.
Read the Bloomberg Law article.
