(Jewish Group) Prominent law firm partners who made offensive comments about Jews and others resign

[Behind the Aegis]

Part of an email thread between John Barber and Jeff Ranen, two law firm partners who quit Lewis Brisbois on May 2, 2023. Photo by Screenshot/Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith

Two prominent attorneys who recently led a mass exodus from a top Los Angeles-based law firm engaged in racist, misogynistic, homophobic and antisemitic language about their clients and colleagues at the company, according to a review of internal emails released Monday morning. They resigned later in the day, according to Reuters.

John Barber and Jeff Ranen, two longtime members of the Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith management committee, made offensive remarks about Jews and Judaism in emails, which their former firm shared exclusively with the Forward. The firm released a larger tranche of inflammatory correspondence from the attorneys targeting other groups, which was first reported on by the New York Post on Saturday.

Barber and Ranen, who served as chair and vice chair of the employment law department at Lewis Brisbois, defected last month to start their own firm and took some 140 employees with them. The pair claimed it was the largest law firm start-up in U.S. history, and that they left the company they were affiliated with for two decades without “any baggage.” They also expressed their desire to “build something that’s reflective of our values and our beliefs.”

The internal emails going back to 2012, however, reveal the two cultivated a culture of bigotry and disparagement.

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