Lawyers often warn their clients to be careful about what they say in emails. Sometimes they need to hear that advice themselves. In separate cases in May, a DLA Piper partner and the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit landed in hot water because of inappropriate remarks in emails. One stayed in his job. The other didn’t.
Nicholas West, a sports law partner in DLA’s London office, was the subject of an inquiry by his firm in May after several email exchanges laced with sexist jokes were leaked to U.K. tabloid Sunday Mirror by his former personal assistant. In emails sent to DLA client Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League, the U.K.’s top soccer league, West made several lewd comments, calling women “gash” and “big-titted broads.” Referring to one of Scudamore’s female colleagues as “Edna,” West wrote that he had “spent all day fending Edna off my graphite shaft.”When the emails became public, West apologized in a statement, saying that he had “let myself, my firm and its clients down.”
