Last spring, employment lawyer Lynn Hermle of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe scored a big win in the most high-profile sex discrimination cases in recent history, defending venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers in a suit filed by a former junior partner, Ellen Pao. Hermle knew that the case would garner a fair amount of media attention, but she was not prepared for the attacks by the press during the trial that focused on her demeanor and appearance.
“I was called ‘razor-tongued,’ ‘aggressive’ and ‘famously tough,’” Hermle recalls. “And I was described as a ‘an imposing woman in a leopard print top’ in one article, and having ‘helmet hair’ in another.” Meanwhile, she adds, “my [male] opponent was impeccably dressed, and there wasn’t a word about his appearance.”
