An old boys’ club culture permeated a Fortune 500 insurance company. During a convention, a male officer at the company spoke candidly with one of the female market directors and a group of her subordinates. He informed the all-female cohort that the only way they would get ahead at the company was "on their knees." The female market director reported the comment along with other sexist and discriminatory events. Soon after, the company eliminated her market, combined it with another, and forced her to apply to the market director position for the newly formed region. The company stacked the interview panel with unfriendly associates and even included the male director who had made the sexist remark. The panel refused to hire her for the new position.
Out of the Fortune 500 company’s 67 market directors, only two were women. The victim was the only female market director in the Northeast territory. She had held the job for many years and witnessed the company merge and redefine several markets without directors losing their jobs. Consequently, her wrongful termination sent a chilling message: play by the boys’ club rules or be eliminated. The sudden loss of her career at the company hit her hard, but she refused to go out without a fight.
The victim sought legal help, and her case was referred to Ari Wilkenfeld, an accomplished civil rights attorney. For over 28 years, Ari’s career was built on exclusively representing plaintiffs against their employers. Despite the disparity in resources, he wasn’t afraid to take on the Fortune 500 company with its deep pockets and team of lawyers. Ari launched a two-year discovery process to uncover how the company had handled market changes over the years. The company drew out the process by withholding the requested documents. They also obfuscated the slight — but significant — difference between “market consolidation” and “market realignment.” Ari zeroed in on this difference, recognizing it was the key to winning his case.
Ari created a timeline of the company’s market realignments, where various territories were split and merged with others. Over the years, three markets with male directors had been realigned without any director losing his job. However, in the victim’s case, the company opted to consolidate instead, which similarly redefined markets but forced the director out of her position. When the female director applied for the new role, the company claimed she had interviewed poorly. The defense’s lawyers argued that this opportunity to reapply cleansed the company of any wrongful termination allegations.
Ari knew the key to revealing the company’s underhanded termination relied upon distinguishing the two technical concepts of realignment and consolidation. When trying to explain the difference, he discovered he was often jotting down figures on paper. He needed a way to better explain the two ideas in an engaging and meaningful way. He brought on DK Global to create a series of illustrations that demonstrated how the two concepts worked. DK Global also suggested a third graphic that visually highlighted how the victim was the lone woman in a “sea of men.”
The first graphic DK Global created was a map of the company’s Northeastern markets. Each market was defined by its own color. The second page showed the company photos of each market director assigned to those territories. The victim’s photo at the very bottom revealed her minority status among the male directors. The second graphic conceptually demonstrated the differences between market consolidation and realignment using buildings and icons. The concepts were then illustrated using the Northeastern market maps to show how the boundaries changed, alongside the directors’ photos. The final slide revealed the only instance in which a market change led to job loss.
The case went to mediation, which proved unsuccessful, before proceeding through arbitration. Ari would normally have reserved the graphics for the jury trial but instead used them in as many examinations as he could to drive the point home. He noticed that every time he brought out the graphics, the arbitrator would light up, engage, and pay close attention, revealing that he understood the technical concepts at play. After a six-day hearing, Ari reserved space in his limited brief to embed the graphics, given how effective they proved. Finally, the magnitude of the victim’s injustice was laid bare, highlighting the strength of her testimony, the graphics, and Ari’s arguments.
Ari Wilkenfeld has worked for over 28 years as an employment law litigator and trial attorney, representing victims of discrimination. Ari has represented clients in high-profile lawsuits — including the case against Matt Lauer in 2016 — has been covered in the New York Post, and has received recognition from the American Psychological Association. Licensed to practice in Maryland and the District of Columbia, he is an active member of the D.C. Circuit, the Fourth Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court, the American Bar Association, the District of Columbia Bar Association, the National Employment Lawyers Association, and the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association.
