The environment in the New York office of a major Toronto law firm is “hostile and demeaning towards women,” a lawyer who worked there alleges in a sexual discrimination lawsuit.

According to allegations filed in court, a senior partner at Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt made an oral sex joke about a female client, said Harvard University was filled with pretty women “pretending to get a legal education,” and once said he hated working with female lawyers because they get pregnant and leave.

The lawyer also alleges the partner told her she “must be more than a pretty face” and was “not helping herself by coming to work looking well put together.”

Jaime Laskis, 34, believes she was the victim of discrimination and that her complaints got her fired. Laskis, a Canadian native of Toronto, was earning $220,000 when she was dismissed in 2009. She is now working at another Manhattan firm despite, she alleges, an attempt by another senior Osler partner to prevent her from getting a new job.

“It's a horrible situation,” Laskis said Monday. “It has been a really difficult process. I'm not this kind of person. I'm not a troublemaker. I'm not even a loud voice. I just keep my head down and do my job.”

The allegations have not been proven in court. Osler, a large firm with almost 500 lawyers, has yet to file its defence.

An Osler official sent a brief statement to the Star saying the firm has investigated Laskis' allegations and will be defending itself.

It said Osler “regrets” Laskis “felt it in her interest to start a legal complaint concerning her time with us in New York.”

The firm said the matter is before the court and would make no other comment. Individual Osler lawyers named in the suit would not respond to questions from the Star.

Laskis started working as an associate at Osler's head office in Toronto in 2003. The next year she moved to the New York office.

According to her lawsuit, she had an exemplary career, with glowing performance appraisals, until 2008. She lays the blame at the feet of Kevin Cramer, an American lawyer who joined the firm in 2006.

In her statement of claim, filed Jan. 28 in a U.S. District Court, Laskis alleges the firm expanded Cramer's job in 2008 to include performance appraisals.

Laskis alleges Cramer came down hard on her and said the firm “didn't think she wanted to be a partner.” He told Laskis to “show me you want this” and informed her the firm was freezing her salary.

According to the claim, Cramer also told her she “must be more than a pretty face” and she was “not helping herself by coming to work looking well put together.”

When she asked for constructive criticism on how to improve her performance, Cramer allegedly told her to “stop acting like a child that's been taken to the woodshed and spanked.”

Laskis' lawsuit marks the second time in as many years a Canadian woman has claimed one of Canada's largest, most prestigious law firms has discriminated against her based on sex. In 2009, lawyer Diana LaCalamita launched a $12 million suit against McCarthy Tétrault, claiming “systemic, gender-based discrimination.” That lawsuit is before the courts.

In the Laskis case, the statement of claim says she was discriminated against “on the basis of her sex” in violation of the New York State Human Rights law and that the defendant acted with “malice and/or reckless indifference” and retaliated against her once she complained.

In the lawsuit, Laskis said her first complaints resulted in Cramer receiving sensitivity training and being removed from the performance appraisal role.

She alleges that six months later she was given another performance appraisal, which was also negative. Laskis, in her claim, said some of the comments feeding into her appraisal came from people she had not worked with, and some came from Cramer.

Laskis complained to senior partner Donald Ross, who said he would look into the matter. She was given the job of recruiting law students and things seemed to be looking up.

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After her 2009 review Laskis said she was told her salary, which had been frozen, would be raised to only $220,000 a year. She claims she should have been making $250,000 according to Osler salary rules for her level.

In June 2009, Laskis was fired. Her lawsuit alleges she was fired in retaliation for complaining about the firm.

Laskis alleges she tried to get a job at another New York firm but a senior Osler partner, during a lunch with that firm's managing partner, said Laskis would be a bad hire.

As a result, Laskis suffered “substantial damages, including emotional distress and mental anguish in an amount as yet undetermined.” A specific amount of damages has not been claimed.

Cramer, a mergers and acquisitions lawyer, works on multi-million dollar deals, and was a lawyer at two major international law firms before going to Osler in 2006.

The lawsuit alleges Cramer made inappropriate comments to others at Osler. The lawsuit claims Cramer told a Toronto partner that a female board member of one of the firm's clients, rumoured to be romantically involved with her company's CEO, was in charge of “oral communications.”

He allegedly told a Harvard-bound law student, “That's great you are going to Harvard — you might meet some pretty women pretending to get a legal education.”

To an associate planning on taking maternity leave he allegedly said: “You realize that this will take you off of partnership track, right?”

And to yet another female partner he later allegedly said, “That's why I hate working with women — because they just get pregnant and leave. Out of every three years you only get one good year out of them.”

Laskis alleges the firm tried to

“ruin her reputation” as a lawyer, and “disrupt her ability to gain employment.”

But she still felt confident to take on the big firm because she was single at the time and had some savings to tide her over unemployment. “I was certainly not alone in this kind of scenario. But I was in a position (that) a lot of other women, who have kids, may not be.”

“Some people don't treat women the same way they treat men. You get a new boss and you can't do anything right,” she said. “That's the person evaluating you, and they don't give you a fair shake.”