Jones Day is devoted to the importance of family and maintains an environment in which our lawyers can practice at the highest professional levels and have rewarding family lives. Among the benefits it provides to parents, the Firm gives lawyers who are primary caregivers, regardless of gender, ten weeks of paid leave and six weeks of unpaid leave after the birth of a child. Birth mothers are eligible to receive an additional eight weeks of paid leave under the Firm’s short term disability policy. For adoptive parents, Jones Day provides eighteen weeks of paid leave, regardless of gender.

Today, two former associates—Mark Savignac and Julia Sheketoff—sued Jones Day claiming that the ten weeks of paid leave and six weeks of unpaid leave Mr. Savignac was offered when he and Ms. Sheketoff had a child constituted gender discrimination because he was not eligible for the paid disability leave offered to birth mothers. Ignoring both the law and biology, Mr. Savignac and Ms. Sheketoff complain that this generous family leave policy, which is fully consistent with guidance of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, perpetuates gender stereotypes because the Firm does not require birth mothers to submit medical evidence proving that childbirth has had a physical impact on them sufficient to justify disability leave. Neither the law nor common sense requires such intrusive disclosures. Jones Day’s adoptive leave policy, which is gender neutral, reflects the fact that adoptive parents face unique demands on their time and finances that differ from those faced by biological parents—such as extended foreign travel and adoption-related legal and administrative hurdles...