William v. Morrison & Foerster LLP

Background

Sherry A. William and Joshua Klayman sued Morrison & Foerster LLP over alleged gender, pregnancy, and maternity discrimination under state and federal law. The plaintiffs alleged that, after returning from maternity leave, they experienced adverse actions including denial of advancement opportunities. In connection with Morrison & Foerster’s motions for summary judgment, the parties filed 20 administrative motions to seal portions of briefs, exhibits, and other materials.

The court noted that the parties had repeatedly refiled the motions, submitted incomplete filings and errata, and provided joint statements that were sometimes vague or did not identify requests by docket number. The court therefore had difficulty determining exactly which portions the parties sought to seal.

Legal standard

Judicial records are presumptively open to the public. Because the materials were connected to dispositive motions, the party seeking to seal them had to show “compelling reasons.” That standard requires a specific factual explanation for why disclosure would cause legally significant harm; general claims of confidentiality or competitive injury are not enough. The requests also had to comply with Civil Local Rule 79-5, which requires parties to narrowly tailor sealing requests and redact only the material that qualifies for protection whenever possible.

Rulings on the sealing requests

The court granted the request to seal names and identifying information for nonpartner attorneys and other nonparty individuals, as well as confidential client information. The court stated that identifying or geographic information about comparators and the comparators’ actual performance evaluations could be sealed. It also granted William’s request to seal the names of her minor children and confidential client information associated with her prior employers, and granted Klayman’s request to seal her email addresses.

The court found Morrison & Foerster’s request to seal broad categories of information about its current compensation, evaluation, promotion, and billing policies overbroad. The employer’s generalized claims of competitive harm did not establish a compelling reason to seal emails and deposition testimony concerning the promotion process as applied to the plaintiffs or billing practices concerning them. The court also rejected broad requests concerning business-development strategies, promotion practices, and billable work, explaining that the employer had not shown why the information would cause a specific competitive injury.

Regarding revenue and performance information for particular practice groups, the court stated that some narrow sealing might be reasonable. However, information about low revenue or performance that Morrison & Foerster relied on when taking actions against the plaintiffs was not properly sealable merely because it concerned confidential business information. The court required the employer to narrow that request.

The court denied the request to seal handwritten notes because the employer did not provide a sufficient justification and the proposed rule could have allowed any evidence based on contemporaneous notes to be sealed. The court also denied the request to seal attorney feedback about the plaintiffs in connection with annual evaluations. It stated that the names of some partners who provided feedback might be redacted if those partners would not be called as trial witnesses and were not decision-makers concerning the plaintiffs’ promotion or termination. The court found no basis to seal documents describing the process for obtaining feedback rather than the feedback itself.

Disposition and next steps

The court granted in part and denied in part all of the administrative motions to seal, without prejudice to refiling in a narrowly tailored form. Within 14 days, the parties were required to exchange statements describing their proposed redactions and then meet and confer. Within 21 days, they were required to file a joint submission identifying each sealing request and the parties’ positions, along with redacted and unredacted versions of the briefs and exhibits. The order disposed of the listed administrative motions to seal; it did not decide the parties’ underlying discrimination claims.