The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has moved to compel testimony about recent conversations between Sidley Austin partners and a former financial director who signed a 1999 letter stating that the firm had a mandatory retirement policy.
Sidley has denied having such a policy in the face of an EEOC suit claiming the Chicago-based law firm discriminated against 31 partners on the basis of age when it demoted them to counsel in 1999. The EEOC has claimed the financial director's letter "flatly contradicts" the firm's position.
The letter, dated Oct. 21, 1999, and addressed to the Social Security Administration in Chicago, states that "it is the general policy of Sidley & Austin not to permit a partner of the firm to continue as a partner commencing the first of the year following the year age 65 is reached." The letter is signed by William B. White, financial director.
According to the EEOC motion filed last Tuesday in Chicago federal court, White testified at a July 26 deposition that he believed the letter to be an accurate statement of the firm's retirement policy at the time he signed it. But he also testified that, after conversations earlier this year with Sidley partners William F. Conlon and Theodore N. Miller, he realized the letter did not accurately state firm policy.
Sounds like lawyer-speak to me. Details here from the New York Law Journal via Law.com.