Foley & Lardner attorney sues firm

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Milwaukee-based law firm Foley & Lardner LLP was slapped with a discrimination and breach of contract lawsuit this week.

Attorney Raymond J. Carey, a founding partner of the firm’s Detroit office, filed suit in Michigan federal court on Feb. 28, alleging that the firm mislead him about his status as a partner and broke compensation promises made during his career with the firm.

Calls to Carey and Foley officials were not immediately returned.

The suit alleges that after joining the firm in 2001, Carey was to receive status as a full partner within four months, but was not made partner until 2003 because partners within the firm falsely blamed him for other partners’ mistakes and reallocated “billing and supervisory credit” owed to Carey, according to the lawsuit.

The discrimination claim is based on Carey’s assertion that Foley does not operate as a true partnership and that its management committee engages in “subjectively determined and arbitrary and capricious compensation practices.”

In the complaint, Carey, 57, alleges that from 2005 to 2009 his compensation was “among the lowest” given to partners in the Detroit office and that his 2010 pay was lower than “similarly situated female, noncaucasian and younger partners of (Foley) who were no more than equally but actually less qualified.”

Carey is seeking lost compensation dating to 2005, and also damages for lost investments, financial and mental distress, litigation costs, and more.

According to Carey’s firm biography, he is a partner in the Labor & Employment Practice and has practiced in the Detroit area for almost 20 years.