In a significant legal development, the Northern District of California has decided that the majority of claims in Meagan Garland’s discrimination lawsuit against the law firm Duane Morris will proceed. This ruling allows deeper examination into the firm’s alleged discriminatory practices and compensation strategies concerning nonequity partners.

Meagan Garland, a former Black female nonequity partner at Duane Morris, has brought to light claims of systemic misclassification by the firm which purportedly shifted business costs unfairly onto nonequity partners and made discriminatory salary decisions based on race and gender. U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo rejected most of Duane Morris's motion to dismiss, setting the stage for Garland to pursue extensive discovery into how the firm manages and distributes partner compensation.

The core of Garland’s complaint accuses Duane Morris of not only underpaying her compared to her white male counterparts but also of broader, systematic inequities embedded within the firm’s compensation structure. These allegations suggest that the firm's operational model, particularly the use of a two-tier partnership system, may be leveraged to offload business expenses and tax burdens from equity partners to those holding nonequity status.

This lawsuit shines a light on what might be a widespread issue across many prestigious law firms that have adopted similar two-tier partnership models. Garland’s pursuit of justice and transparency in Duane Morris’s practices could inspire nonequity partners from other firms to initiate similar legal challenges, potentially leading to significant changes in the legal industry’s employment and compensation policies.

The implications of this case are profound as they touch on issues of race, gender, and equity in the workplace, challenging long-standing practices in one of the most tradition-steeped professions. As the case progresses, it will likely attract attention from across the legal community and beyond, setting a precedent for how law firms engage and compensate their non-equity talent.

For more details on the ongoing litigation, visit [Law.com’s coverage of the case](https://www.law.com/therecorder/2025/08/05/duane-morris-cant-escape-former-nonequity-partners-compensation-class-action/).

Further reading on the evolution of this lawsuit and its broader implications can be found in previous discussions [here](https://abovethelaw.com/2024/09/duane-morris-non-equity-partner-lawsuit-escalates-with-forum-shopping-and-witnesses/) and [here](https://abovethelaw.com/2024/08/are-non-equity-partnerships-part-of-a-biglaw-tax-discrimination-scheme/).