SAN FRANCISCO — Traci Ribeiro, the Sedgwick partner who sued the firm earlier this year for gender discrimination, will have to make her case in arbitration, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California found that the firm’s partnership agreement put the question of whether internal firm disputes are subject to arbitration in the hands of an arbitrator. In a six-page order, Alsup also wrote that Ribeiro “had the requisite sophistication to understand” that provisions of Sedgwick’s agreement, which she signed in February 2012 after being elected a nonequity partner and again later that year when it was amended, would route her claims to arbitration.
