Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Nextel and discrimination Lawsuit-

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 12:14:48 -0500

Article Published: Sunday, November 30, 2003  
Nextel workers allege betrayal
Law firm accused of sweetheart deal

By Tom McGhee 
Denver Post Business Writer

Doris Brewer thought she and a number of other Nextel Communications 
workers had a big financial reward coming when lawyers announced an 
agreement to settle their discrimination complaint. 

Now, she and other current and former Nextel employees are fighting 
a legal battle against Leeds Morelli & Brown, the New York law firm 
they claim sold them out in a sweetheart deal with the wireless 
giant.

Brewer and others lost a class-action lawsuit against the firm on 
Nov. 5 in Arapahoe County District Court, but they plan to appeal, 
according to Brewer's attorney.

In the suit they claim:

LM&B made a secret deal in September 2000 with Nextel that garnered 
$7.5 million for the lawyers but left 587 Nextel workers and former 
workers - 159 of them in Colorado - to split only $5.9 million.

That their attorneys never told them how much the firm would reap 
through its agreement with the wireless giant.

And that once LM&B had assured itself a handsome payday, its lawyers 
worked against their clients' best interest to limit Nextel's 
exposure to damages.

LM&B declined repeated requests for comment about the case. Denver 
lawyer Traci Van Pelt, who represented the firm in Arapahoe County, 
said confidentiality agreements among Nextel, LM&B and its clients 
as well as a court order bar the firm from discussing the case.

Nextel spokesman Chris Doherty said the process that his company 
followed to resolve the dispute was fair and equitable.

The cash split guaranteeing the lawyers a larger chunk of the 
settlement than their clients was unusual, said Lisa Taylor, a New 
Jersey lawyer and past chairwoman of a district ethics committee 
appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

The deal with Nextel gave the firm more than the one-third of any 
final award it would have received under the contingency contracts 
it signed with its own clients, according to the suit.

Contingency arrangements are common in discrimination suits, Taylor 
said. They base an attorney's fees on the amount of a final 
settlement, giving the lawyer an incentive to fight for a large 
award, but LM&B's deal with Nextel could have neutralized that 
incentive, Taylor said.

"In this case, there is no relation between what the clients got and 
what the lawyers got. It was fixed in advance," she said.

Similar accusations have arisen over discrimination claims that LM&B 
handled in New York, where six employees of publisher Penguin-Putnam 
Inc. are suing the firm and the company, alleging Leeds Morelli 
shortchanged them while cutting a deal with Penguin.

In another case in New Jersey, a class-action suit on behalf of 358 
Prudential Insurance Co. workers claims that the company tricked 
them into a settlement arranged by LM&B. In that case, several media 
outlets, including Bloomberg News, the ABC network and The Record 
newspaper of Hackensack, N.J., have sued to unseal the confidential 
settlement.

In the Colorado case, court documents obtained by The Denver Post 
show that Nextel agreed to pay the firm $5.5 million for legal fees 
incurred by LM&B's Nextel clients. Nextel also gave the lawyers a $2 
million consulting contract for post-settlement work.

Brewer, 34, and others claim they weren't informed of the bargain, 
which was struck before any settlement was reached. They argue that 
the money Nextel promised LM&B was a reward to the firm for bringing 
them to the negotiating table and settling the case for a relative 
pittance.

And they claim the lawyers should have revealed how much Nextel 
would pay the firm before advising them to withdraw legal complaints 
and participate in talks that ended with Nextel's paying most of 
them $10,000 or less.

SETTLEMENT UPROAR  
A dispute that pits a New York law firm against some of its former 
clients:

Leeds Morelli & Brown: Law firm that handled employment 
discrimination claims against Nextel Communications. Nextel settled 
the claims for $5.9 million.

Doris Brewer and Fredrick Foster: Coloradans who sued LM&B, alleging 
the firm made a lucrative and secret deal with Nextel at its 
clients' expense.

An Arapahoe County District judge has approved a settlement of the 
Brewer/Foster case. Brewer objects to the settlement, calling it 
unfair. Angela Roper, Brewer's lawyer, said she will appeal the case.

"They had a great sales pitch. If we had known that our attorneys 
were going to sell us out, none of us would have taken that 
settlement," said Denise McNeil, 45,of Denver, who was a supervisor 
in Nextel's customer-care department at the Denver Tech Center.

LM&B and the companies have made efforts to keep the disputes out of 
the public eye. A judge in New Jersey has ordered documents in the 
Prudential case sealed, and a similar order is in effect in Arapahoe 
County, where Nextel employees sued the firm over the settlement 
after first agreeing to Nextel's offers.

According to Long Island-based Leeds Morelli & Brown's website, the 
firm is an authority on employment law. "We take pride in servicing 
our clients while vigorously representing their interests, and we 
strive to maintain the highest standards of integrity and 
professionalism," the site reads.

LM&B's former clients tell a different tale.

Brewer, who has lupus, accused Nextel of violating the Americans 
With Disabilities Act by failing to make accommodations for her 
while she worked for the company.

McNeil and Alencia Moore, 43, both African-Americans who worked in 
customer service, say minorities at the Reston, Va.-based company 
wrestled with a hostile work environment.

All three say they complained to the U.S. Equal Employment 
Opportunity Commission when Nextel refused to address their 
grievances.

McNeil and Moore heard that LM&B was representing some disgruntled 
Nextel workers elsewhere in the country. They contacted the firm and 
met with the lawyers in New York.

The two helped enlist other Nextel employees as clients and in 
return Leeds Morelli paid them a retainer, said McNeil, who at one 
point actually worked full time for the firm. "They said, 'Can you 
get more people?' We said, 'Yes, we know more.' We got close to 150 
people," McNeil said.

LM&B lawyers told the employees that they had solid cases and many 
of them could demand that Nextel pay hundreds of thousands of 
dollars each to settle, said Angela Roper, Brewer's Totowa, N.J.-
based lawyer.

Brewer remembers her meeting - and the outcome of her discrimination 
claim - with a Leeds lawyer this way: "One of their lawyers told me 
my case was worth $150,000. They gave me a $10,000 settlement."

Leeds and Nextel reached a settlement agreement that called for the 
clients to enter into talks with Nextel in September, 2000, 
according to court documents. That agreement gave LM&B a $5.5 
million fee "to cover the attorney's fees and expenses, other than 
expert fees, that claimants might otherwise pay to LM&B for its 
representation."

The arrangement also called for the attorneys to act as consultants 
for Nextel for two years after the settlement was reached, for an 
additional $2 million.

The firm didn't pass that information onto its clients, according to 
the Arapahoe County suit. In fact, those who asked for a copy of the 
document were turned down, the suit said.

Even if they had known, the clients had little knowledge of the law 
and were unlikely to understand the implications of the fee 
arrangement, the suit said.

LM&B did present clients - who live in 25 different cities - with a 
description of the pact. A copy of the document reviewed by The Post 
called for the clients to withdraw all lawsuits and EEOC complaints 
against Nextel.

The agreement does reveal the firm's two-year consulting contract 
with Nextel to provide assistance and legal advice regarding anti-
discrimination and diversity policies and programs, but it doesn't 
say how much the firm would receive for the services or how much 
LM&B would make in legal fees.

Highlights of the agreement that LM&B did reveal refer to its 
consulting duties in this way: "I further acknowledge and understand 
that such consultancy presents a conflict of interest for LM&B, and 
hereby knowingly and voluntarily waive any objection to such 
conflict," it said.

Once the clients agreed to drop their legal complaints against 
Nextel, the dispute resolution process - negotiations over the 
amount each would receive - began.

In the course of the negotiations LM&B advised its clients to take 
the small amounts offered or risk getting nothing, said Moore, a one-
time customer-service representative.

She and McNeil received $15,000 each.

Clients frequently walked away from the mediation feeling that LM&B 
was doing little to present their cases, the suit said.

Nextel's Doherty said Brewer and the others had plenty of 
opportunity to assure their settlements were fair. "They were 
encouraged to seek out independent review on their own prior to 
entering into any agreement," he said.

New Jersey lawyer Taylor, who has reviewed Nextel's agreement with 
LM&B, said in 17 years practicing law, she hasn't seen anything 
quite like it.

"There is a big question if under those circumstances a lawyer could 
possibly be in a position to zealously represent their client," said 
Taylor.

Upset by the relatively small amounts they were to collect and by 
the shroud of secrecy that hung over Leeds' deal with Nextel, Brewer 
and Aurora resident Fredrick Foster sued LM&B in 2002 on the part of 
all the former clients.

LM&B settled that class-action suit for $1.2 million, an amount that 
will be split among all those once represented by the firm.

In a statement, Foster said he is pleased by the settlement, 
approved by a judge in early November.

"The court's order eliminates certain risks and obstacles involved 
in this case. Every class member I have spoken with has been very 
happy with the settlement and has expressed their appreciation," he 
said.

Brewer isn't one of them. With Roper as her attorney, she challenged 
the Arapahoe County settlement, saying it was inadequate to correct 
the alleged wrong done to all the claimants. She wanted the court to 
order LM&B to turn over everything the firm made from the case to 
its former clients.

Another 46 people have signed legal documents objecting to the 
settlement, said Roper.

Brewer's hopes may now rest with the Colorado Supreme Court, where 
Roper said she plans to file an appeal.

No matter what the ultimate outcome, said Brewer, she doesn't intend 
to end the fight quietly. "Legally, I may have no recourse, but I 
can talk about it as much as I want."

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~33~1797726,00.html

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