Good morning, welcome to my latest edition of Monday Morning Briefing – Juneteenth Edition. I am actually penning this article on Sunday morning, because it is my intent to take off the Juneteenth holiday, in Santa Barbara. And as I was unable to get a Briefing out to you last week due to a mediation on Monday, and I think this is a timely story to tell, I am writing it for you on Sunday. To send out on Monday. So here goes. Happy Juneteenth for those who are celebrating.
THIS IS THE STORY OF JOHN AND JEFF, WHO CAME TO LOS ANGELES AND STRUCK OIL IN THE WORLD OF EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES LAW . . .
Some of you may know this story. For you, this will just be my take on the events to date. For the rest, please understand that this is not going to be just some juicy gossip about a few of my brethren lawyers. You all must know by now that I have a lesson or two for you all to take away from this rather sordid story, as your employment lawyer. And those lessons are ones that these very long-time employment lawyers SHOULD have known.
As of just a few months ago, John Barber and Jeff Ranen were two Los Angeles law partners who ran the prominent Employment Practices Law Group at the very large, well established law firm of Lewis Brisbois Brisgaard & Smith, known as either Lewis Brisbois or LBBS to most of us in the legal industry. I had met both of them at various legal and insurance functions over the years, after all, they were fellow Los Angeles attorneys who worked the same side of the employment law fence that I did. John Barber was a few years behind me, and Jeff Ranen a few more years behind him. But even in a city this size, it’s a pretty small legal world. And our firm employs several former LBBS lawyers – three just in our department. John and Jeff had been at LBBS what seemed like forever. They had built a monstrous department at a firm that had grown to be one of the largest in the country, with over 1600 lawyers worldwide.
So, it was a huge shock when in early May this year, the announcement came that John Barber and Jeff Ranen were leaving to start their own firm – but not quietly. Here was one of the announcements:
In a stunning move, two longtime partners at Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith last week split off into a brand-new law firm, which — with as many as 140 attorneys potentially on board, all from Lewis Brisbois — they’re calling the largest startup law firm in U.S. history.
Barber Ranen LLP was formed last week as the brainchild of John Barber and Jeff Ranen, who co-founded the downtown-based firm with six other former Lewis Brisbois partners. The widespread commitment to follow by other Lewis Brisbois attorneys has resulted in a blockbuster launch with four California offices as well as eight additional markets nationwide.
“Two weeks ago, I gave my ‘Jerry Maguire’ speech, and I didn’t know if a lot of people were going to follow me or if I’d just be with a secretary and a goldfish,” Ranen said. “If I do nothing else with the rest of my career, I will be satisfied with just the people who chose to follow us. I never thought I’d have my name on a firm and I’ve also never been more excited in my entire professional life.”
Lewis Brisbois leadership, in the wake of the mass exodus, also spent much of last week undergoing a significant reorganization, punctuated most prominently by the stepping down of longtime co-chair and co-founder Bob Lewis. Virtually all of the departures come from Lewis Brisbois’ employment law practice group, where all worked under Barber’s and Ranen’s leadership.
So that was pretty stunning stuff. John and Jeff left LBBS’s employment law group pretty shaken, with the firm installing new leadership. In the meantime, off goes new Barber Ranen to build the new perfect “woke” law firm, or so they said. And as if to thumb their noses at their former firm, they set up shop right down the street. Their business model, they explained, was to have a more robust maternity and paternity policy, stronger salaries and benefits, more flexibility for their employees to work remotely, and to “lead with empathy, collaboration, and compassion” so they could take better care of their attorneys. “The origin is simple: Jeff Ranen and I have practiced for 20 years together. I hired him directly out of law school,” Barber said. “We both came to a point in our careers where we wanted to start something fresh and aligned with our personalities.”
We were soon to get a taste of exactly what those personalities were all about.
Over the weekend of Saturday, June 3, we start to get cryptic alerts on our phones – something about LBBS revealing years’ worth of internal emails between Barber and Ranen, based on an “anonymous complaint” made to LBBS after the two had left. I was on a hike with several of my firm colleagues that weekend, and we were all talking about it. The review of the emails revealed that the two senior partners had repeatedly used sexist, racist, antisemitic, and anti-LGBTQ language to talk about their clients, colleagues, partners, opposing counsel, even judges. The crude and toxic language in these emails went back for nearly 15 years.
By Monday, Law 360, our best source of legal information nationally, was all over this. Reports kept dropping throughout the morning, with more grueling details about the emails. One of the emails written by Ranen, to Barber, said something along the lines of “well, let’s make sure we don’t hire any jews there,” referring to hiring jews at the new firm they were about to leave LBBS and start. And they wrote these emails on the LBBS email system, within days of leaving to start their new firm.
As we were all reading these articles on Monday June 5, like watching a slow car chase, unable to look away, the next shocking bit of news dropped. John Barber and Jeff Ranen announced their resignation – from the new Camelot-like firm they had just formed, not four weeks earlier. One of my partners called me to talk about it, and I was expressing my absolute shock. “Maybe it’s just a resignation from their positions, but they will still practice. How can the firm survive without them? All these people left and relied on them! What about them?” And I was speaking, my partner said “No . . I’m looking online. They are gone from the website.” “Already?” I gasped. How fast could this even be happening? It was still Monday morning!
Sure enough, by the end of that day, the firm name had changed. It was clear that John Barber and Jeff Ranen had left the dream firm they had started just a few weeks earlier, and left their fellow partners holding the leases, debt and obligations to run a firm with hundreds of lawyers and staff with several national offices relying on them. Whether it will ultimately survive, in some smaller form, with some of the leftover, strongest partners to carry it, is anyone’s guess. Let’s face it, some of these partners, such as Melissa Daugherty, who is leading the new firm, was one of the victims of the scalding emails. She and her partners are asking for the support of their friends and colleagues, which I am sure they are getting. But they will need the support of their clients, and that will remain to be seen. I do wish them luck. The new firm is said to be 60% women owned. I was always a little dismayed that Barber and Ranen hadn’t included Melissa’s name in the firm originally. I always understood that she was right there with them, building the practice group at LBBS. But maybe now we know why they had not.
So, it’s only been a couple of weeks since the emails were “leaked” by LBBS, and a few more weeks since Barber Ranen was even formed. All our heads are still spinning, as we still learn the details of these horrendous and seemingly contemptuous emails and the fallout of all of this. The LA Times dropped a good article about all this on June 7, if anyone wants to read the details of these emails.
But in the wake of this, there are some points I want to make. And some lessons that we, as employers, need to take away. Which, beyond the pure prurient details, is why I tell you all this story.
First, I feel like almost everyone involved in this little drama got it wrong, which is why I label this a cautionary tale.
John Barber and Jeff Ranen: Where do I even start about how awful and ridiculous their conduct was? They were the kings of the world, and now . . .their world has crashed and burned in a matter of days, and they did this to themselves. First, they bad-mouthed nearly everyone they knew with horrendous, toxic, racist, sexist, venomous, antisemitic, disrespectful language, IN the workplace. And why? Were they horrendous, toxic, racist, sexist, venomous, antisemitic human beings? Maybe? But I think it was more that they felt their power and positions were such that they simply did not give any thought about the language they used or the impact it would have, would these emails ever be found. And maybe that in itself IS a form of racism and misogyny.
Which comes to point number two. It was bad enough that these two seasoned EMPLOYMENT LAW ATTORNEYS used this language in the workplace. THEY PUT THEM IN WRITING, ON THE COMPANY EMAIL SERVER . . . AND LEFT THEM THERE! FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE! And then left – to start a competing firm, in the “largest start-up in legal history!” You don’t think that is going to piss off your former employer, who might go through your emails after you left? Come on. These guys do the same thing I do for a living! They just had to know better than that.
So why did they leave all these emails behind? They knew, just as we all do reading them, that these emails were nuclear. Just as LBBS knew. In fact, there were at least a few emails left by John Barber insinuating that if these emails were ever found, it would be disastrous. So why not delete them as they were sent? Why just leave them to be found?
My opinion? Because in their entire respective careers, nothing like this had ever come back to haunt them. They were untouchable.
Lesson Number One. Be classy and respectful in the workplace. ALWAYS. It’s the workplace. Even if you don’t get sued, karma gets you. Karma got these guys. They lost their dream firm; I don’t know if they will practice law again. Maybe they will write a book or Netflix series, after the WGA strike is over. Set the tone from the top. Set your tone for your career. Set your tone for your life.
Lesson Number Two. Don’t put things IN WRITING! I shouldn’t need to even say this one.
Lesson Number Three. None of you are untouchable. Your businesses aren’t untouchable. These guys walked with privilege, and then they tripped over theirs.
LBBS: They are not exactly innocent parties here, in my humble opinion. A few other articles have asked the same question. Why did they release these emails? They weren’t being sued in some public lawsuit. It wasn’t like the public was being harmed here. They just wanted to take down their competition. But they lobbed that bomb not just at Barber and Ranen, but all their partners and associates and staff that left with them. They lobbed a bomb so big that all their clients knew about it. The result, though, is that I doubt those clients who left LBBS with Barber Ranen are going to be running back to LBBS so quickly. So the blow back is on everyone.
The remaining partners, attorneys and staff at Daugherty and Lordan (the new firm): I really can’t call these folks bad actors, but query, were they complete victims? Rumor has it that the group there at LBBS was pretty toxic, even aside from these emails. It’s hard to believe that Barber and Ranen were angels to work with, aside from the emails, and I suspect (and have heard) that there were ripple effects. It wouldn’t be the first rough place to work in the legal world. I honestly feel pretty blessed to say I have only worked at three amazing firms in my 38 years, but I know I am the exception. So when you hitch your wagon to a toxic star and follow folks like Barber and Ranen to start this new firm, how much risk do you assume? And while the partners at the top may have more of that assumption, what choice do you have as a junior associate, when your entire group is going? So I don’t really reach any conclusion here, it’s more of a question to leave with you all.
At what point do we put down our collective feet and stop supporting toxic business leaders, politicians, and the like? When do we demand that the people in charge be decent human beings? For me, I say now. This story is still one that is evolving. These questions, well, are much bigger than this story.
And maybe a fitting one for Juneteenth. It’s a good day to look inside your own organization and make sure you don’t have any emails or other toxicity to clear out.
Sending greetings from the lovely oceanfront in Santa Barbara, where I am about to go do some morning yoga on the sand. Don’t forget those deep breaths and lots of hydration, my friends.
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