An Asian-American woman works as an associate at a law firm. At the firm’s end-of-the-year party, a senior partner, clearly intoxicated, directs several inappropriate comments toward her that mock her gender and race.

An Asian-American woman works as an associate at a law firm. At the firm’s end-of-the-year party, a senior partner, clearly intoxicated, directs several inappropriate comments toward her that mock her gender and race. The associate meets with the firm’s managing partner to discuss the problem the next week. Two months later, the firm fires the associate, claiming that she has not performed adequately over the previous five months. The associate believes that the firm got rid of her before she made a bigger deal of the senior partner’s inappropriate behavior, so she files a lawsuit alleging that her termination amounted to unlawful employment discrimination.

1. How can the associate prove her case?

2. What information do you imagine the firm would possess that would help her case?

3. How can she get this information?

4. Does the firm have to provide this information if the associate properly follows the rules to get it?

5. Imagine the firm has information that is very damaging to the firm’s case. For example, they have an email where one partner says to another: “let’s get rid of her before she files a sexual harassment case against us.” Do they have to provide that to the other side?

6. How should the firm respond if the associate requests “all e-mails that mention my name or any matter connected to me written by or received by the managing partner in the two months after my meeting with him”?