Last month, Louis Brisboa, Visgard & Smith, one of the nation’s largest law firms, was stunned by the announcement that two of its top partners would launch their own boutique operations, accompanied by 140 colleagues. rice field.

The shock inside Louis Brisebois’ downtown Los Angeles headquarters quickly turned to anger. Recently retired partners have embarked on a press campaign to portray their former employers as profit-seeking law factories crushing the aspirations of lawyers.

“We decided we didn’t want to compromise any further,” one of the partners, John Barber, told reporters in May. Another, Jeff Lannen, recalled giving an enthusiastic “Jerry Maguire speech” to persuade his colleagues to follow him out the door.

But on the weekend, Louis Brisebois fought back.

In an unusual move, the company’s management said Barber and Rann used vulgar language against women, blacks, Armenians, Persians, and gay men, as well as offensive stereotypes about Jews and Asians. directed the publication of numerous e-mails that brought in The venerable law firm has managed to crush new rivals, destroy the careers of estranged partners, and unsettle the judiciary.

The e-mail, dating back 15 years, was dizzying in its crudeness and harshness. High Court judges were called “Sugartits”. Several female lawyers were called “c—t.” The adjectives “okama” and “okama” were used as universal insults. An Asian job seeker was vilified because of the size of his genitals. “What about non-Jewish people?” Rannen dismissed another job seeker.

By Monday, the emails had been excerpted by the New York Post and the Jewish newspaper Forward, and the start-up Barber Lannen had gone bankrupt.

In a joint statement announcing their resignations, Barber and Rann said, “These 72 hours have been the most difficult of our lives because we had to acknowledge and consider these emails. ‘ said. “We are ashamed of the words we wrote and we deeply apologize.”

Barber Lannen chief executive Tim Graves, a former attorney at Louis Brisboa, said in a statement that the remaining partners would “set up a new office”, adding: “We will recover and plan our path forward. I asked for help while I did.

A roster of lawyers has been removed from Barber Lannen’s website, and some lawyers have already asked to return to their former positions at Louis Brisebois, a spokeswoman said.

It wasn’t all good news for the company. The release of the email, attributed to Louis Brisebois himself, was seen by some as revealing a culture of prejudice prevalent on the part of the corporate giant. Many offensive messages were copied by colleagues, from junior employees to colleagues.

“I just don’t get it,” said Ann Park, a corporate litigator and president of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. “It’s clearly hurting not only the lawyers, but their colleagues who didn’t press charges.”

A spokeswoman said Luis Brisebois recently hired a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant to review its internal practices.

The emails were not written by junior employees, but by influential veterans and bosses. Mr. Barber is a member of the firm’s executive committee and oversees approximately 1,700 attorneys in 55 offices across the country. was a person Both helped manage the company’s labor and employment practices and defended the company from harassment and discrimination lawsuits.

The departures they instigated in early May represented about 8% of the firm’s attorneys, and that was on top of 30 other attorneys leaving earlier this year. Within days, 87-year-old Bob Lewis, who founded the company in 1979, stepped down and the management reorganized.

Meanwhile, Barbour’s and Lannen’s new business attracted favorable coverage in the legal press. It was around this time that the company received anonymous complaints about former partners, according to Louis Brisebois. The company specifically advised them to scrutinize their emails, according to people familiar with the matter.

Firm executives launched an investigation and found “dozens of unacceptably bigoted e-mails directed at colleagues, clients, attorneys from other firms and even judges. We were shocked to discover that,” the agency said in a statement.

The company’s leaders consulted ethics experts and offered a range of options. Publish the email on the Louis Brisebois website. Share an email with a partner at Barber and Ranen’s new company. A person familiar with the discussion said they filed a complaint with a licensed California attorney.

Ultimately, office leaders chose to provide the media with a series of handpicked and partially redacted communications. The decision was presented as a transparency, and many in the legal field saw it as cold retaliation.

Scott Cummings, a UCLA law professor who teaches ethics, said that while the company was not legally obligated to release the emails, it was ethical because they informed prospective employees and customers of the offensive views held by the men. said it was the right thing to do. .

“Bringing these things to the surface will help protect the public and warn professionals about what they should stop doing,” Cummings said. Even if Louis Brisebois’ motive was revenge, he said the benefits to the scene and the public still exist. “These things can happen at the same time.”

Barber and Lannen said that in an area where corporate email accounts are routinely mined for evidence, racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted messages can lead to costly settlements and judgments. Are active.

But both men seemed to enjoy a blatant disregard for professionalism and decorum. In 2013, Lannen told Barber, “For a little fun, do a keyword search for the words ‘c—’ and ‘Jewish’ in your email inbox and outbox.”

“You seem to know me,” said Barber.

The two infused anti-Semitism into their daily work. Rannen repeatedly used “Jewish” as a synonym for price negotiations, writing in 2016 that “a Jew could get you down to $390.” When Mr. Lanen warned his colleagues about the bagels he brought to the office in 2014, Mr. Barber replied: “Jews are—”

In a proud 2012 email, Lanen told Barber: “Gypsy is my new word for about half of California’s minorities.

Over the next decade, Mr. Lannen repeatedly brought up the nickname “gypsy” to ridicule several lawyers, so much so that last year one of Louis Brisebois’ colleagues told Mr. Lannen, “Dirty gypsy is my new favorite adjective.” I confided.

Sex was also a frequent topic. After a friend promised her a trip to Las Vegas in 2015 of “unprecedented levels of debauchery,” Lannen said she planned to get continued attendance at the federal court, telling her companions to “go to a strip club or prostitution.” I’m going to bring my wife,” he said. “

When a female lawyer asked for an upgrade to her office’s nursing room, Ms. Lanen forwarded it to a male colleague with speculation about her appearance after having two children. He added, “She weighs 200 pounds and she may have acne scars, but after all this time, I would still be dating her.”

The email also includes Barber’s seemingly gratuitous use of the n-word. When informed by a colleague of his that another participant in the 2013 mediation disagreed with the term, Mr. Barber replied, “Okay.” Then he spelled out the words.

Louis Brisebois redacted the names of many of the individuals who took part in the infamous conversations, but the names of those who were slandered remain visible. One, Linda Miller-Savitt, an employment attorney at a rival law firm, was described by Mr. Lannen in an email to two other lawyers in 2018 as a “really badass.”

“It’s very disappointing to know this about a colleague, even if it’s a competitor,” she told The Times. Savitt is representing the newspaper in an employment lawsuit.

Jonathan Delshad, the attorney who opposed Louis Brisebois in the 2016 lawsuit, told The Times on Tuesday that Lannen told his colleagues, “Tell him he’s the reason most people hate Jews. I learned that he had written a letter saying,

“I try not to get involved in personal disputes,” Delshad said, adding, “I do my best to treat all human beings with dignity and respect, regardless of their position in legal disputes.” added.

Merle Vaughn, a lawyer and legal recruiter who specializes in diverse candidate screening, said the email raised questions about what office life was like for women and minorities.

“If they had it in writing, what were the unquoted microaggressions they had to endure to keep their jobs,” Major Lindsay & Africa’s LA Vaughan, the office’s managing partner, said.

Their apparent comfort in documenting their offensive thoughts is proof that “they believe they’re above that level and won’t get caught,” she says. .

Barber seemed to recognize that, too. In 2015, he told an acquaintance of his, “There is no ‘NSFW’ to me.” It’s short for “not safe for work.”

“My average email would get someone fired,” he added.