The following is a letter I faxed to my sister some time in 1992. I had been terminated by the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where I had worked as a paralegal, on October 29, 1991. The letter confirms that I had been told that I was being terminated because my work was of poor quality. In a pleading Akin Gump filed with the D.C. Department of Human Rights (May 22, 1992) in my unlawful job termination complaint, a copy of which pleading I received in late December 1992, I learned for the first time that the firm was claiming that I was terminated because of mental health reasons. The sworn pleading (prepared by Dennis M. Race, the lawyer who terminated me) stated that my work quality was not an issue in the decision to terminate.
FAX NO. 609 235 5569 MEREDITH FINANCIAL SERVICES
transmittal for Mrs. Estelle Jacobson c/o Mr. Edward Jacobson
______________________________________________
Dear Stell,
This may be a totally innocent thing, but it struck me as slightly odd. And where Akin Gump is concerned you never know.
The day I was terminated I was in Dennis Race's office with Christine [Robertson, my supervisor]. Dennis Race asked me how current I was with my LMS [the attorney billing computer program]. I told him I was current as of the previous afternoon. He told me not to bother logging in my time for the morning of October 29, 1991 (about 3.75 hours). It would only have taken a minute to do so. (When did you ever hear an attorney say, "We won't bother billing the client." Sam Rayburn may have said the Democrats were the party with a heart, but please.)
I went down to the terrace level to bring down to Christine the batch of work I had been working on. I instructed her on what remained to be done on the batch. She asked me if I would log on to a terminal to do what had to be done. I politely refused, saying, "I don't work here anymore." (I figured "what would she do, fire me?") She didn't say anything else about the issue, as if it weren't important.
Do you think her request that I log on to the computer was totally innocuous?
(Also, if my work was so poor so as to justify my termination, wouldn't her first thought have been, "well it will all have to be redone anyway.")
GF
I later learned in July 1993 during a telephone conversation with Pat McNeil, a coworker, that after I left the building, Robertson called a meeting of her employees and told them she was afraid I might return to the premises to kill her. She advised that the lock to the office suite was being changed to prevent my re-entry. Obviously, Robertson's statements and actions were a self-serving defamation. The D.C. Department of Human Rights and the D.C. Court of Appeals failed to find that my supervisor's obvious defamation was evidence of discriminatory animus or a hostile work environment.
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On the evening of July 1, 1993 I spoke by telephone with a former Akin Gump coworker, Patricia McNeil. Summarized below are selected, material comments made by Pat McNeil. I supplied a copy of the tape recording of the phone call to the DC Corporation Counsel, the U.S. Secret Service, and the D.C. Police (Second District, Officer J.E. Williams, Badge 1226).
1. I thought you were a very professional person, a quiet person, who stayed to himself. I respected that. Some people are just not people-oriented.
2. I never thought you were a violent person.
3. [Noting that I posted therapists' appointment cards at my desk:] I heard people say, "He must be crazy, he's always going to a psychiatrist."
4. [Quoting comments by another coworker, Carletta Diggins, concerning my termination:] Carletta said, "I wonder what they did to Gary? Gary was such a nice person. He was really a quiet person. He didn't bother anyone." I told Carletta, "as good of a person as Gary is -- his work speaks for itself, it couldn't have been his work -- what did he do?" She said, "I don't know, Pat."
5. [States facetiously:] All of a sudden you became this crazy person. When you were hired you weren't crazy. When do you think you became crazy?
6. [Concerning Dennis Race's investigation of my allegation of harassment:] Dennis Race didn't question anybody in the Department. He never talked to me. If he did an investigation, wouldn't you think that he'd have talked to various ones in the Department? I don't know of anyone in the Department he talked to. Maybe he only talked to selected people Chris Robertson picked, Chris' favorites. [Note that Pat McNeil's conjecture suggests a violation by my supervisor, Chris Robertson, of D.C. Code sec. 1-2525(b), prohibiting the aiding or abetting of retaliation.]
7. All I know is that Chris said, "You all know that Gary is gone. And they're coming to change the locks, because we're afraid Gary may come back and he may try to kill me." I never pictured you to be a person who would do something like that.
8. Lutheria Harrison and Sherri Ann Patrick were promoted to paralegals. [Lutheria Harrison and Sherri Ann Patrick fit in the category of "Chris Robertson's favorites."]
Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, Record at 41.
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