Douglas Wigdor

Wigdor received his B.A. degree from Washington University, St. Louis where he now endows a scholarship to the Arts & Science School[8] and where a cycling studio has been named after him.[9] He received his J.D. degree from Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law[10] and is a member of the International Tennis Club of the United States.[11] He received a master's degree at St Cross College, Oxford University and was named the 2007 and 2014 Alumnus of the Year.[12] The college has named the West Quad library and garden room after him and his wife Catherine, an alumna of Lincoln College, Oxford.[13][14] At Oxford, he was on the university’s 1995 national championship basketball team.[5] Wigdor has lectured on university campuses as a guest lecturer and speaker.[15][16]

Wigdor clerked for the Federal Court and worked as an attorney in the Suffolk County district attorney’s office. He then worked for corporations defending themselves against discrimination suits while an attorney at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. In order to begin prosecuting those discrimination suits themselves,[5] he founded Wigdor LLP in 2003 with the future District Attorney for Brooklyn, New York Kenneth P. Thompson.[17] That year he received a $7.5 million jury award against Wal-Mart, which was one of the largest yet under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 .[18] In his career, Wigdor coined the phrase “recessionary discrimination” to describe the use of the economy as a pretext for discrimination.[19]

Among his cases, in 2009, he represented five women in a gender discrimination matter against Citibank, a case that appeared on the front cover of Forbes Magazine.[20] In 2011, Wigdor represented Nafissatou Diallo, a housekeeper attacked in the Sofitel Hotel by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund.[21] In December 2020, Wigdor and Diallo both appeared in the Netflix original docu-series about the case, Room 2806: The Accusation.[22]

In 2015, Wigdor represented an Uber passenger who was kidnapped and raped by her driver in New Delhi.[23][24] The case led to Uber being temporarily banned in New Delhi, and the company later introduced a panic button to its app in India.[25] Two years later, Wigdor sued Uber on behalf of the victim, accusing the company's top executives of unlawfully obtaining and sharing her private medical records.[26] One top executive was fired over the incident, and Uber's CEO at the time, Travis Kalanick, resigned one week after the lawsuit was filed.[27][28]

In terms of discrimination cases against large financial groups, he has represented clients in a gender discrimination case against Dresdner,[29] and pregnancy discrimination cases against Goldman Sachs[30] and Deutsche Bank.[31] He has also represented clients against Fox News,[32] settling for approximately twenty clients out of court for $10 million.[33] Other notable cases he has represented have included a racial discrimination case on behalf of actor Rob Brown against Macy’s,[34] and the representation of Charles Oakley against James Dolan and Madison Square Garden.[35]

As a complainant himself, Wigdor brought a lawsuit against SoulCycle after being banned from the spinning studio subsequent to the representation of one of its former instructors.[36]

Wigdor represents five NY1 anchorwomen in an age and gender discrimination lawsuit against Charter Communications.[37] He also represented the former Chief of Staff to Adam Neumann in a pregnancy discrimination complaint against WeWork.[38]

On January 21, 2020, five days before the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony, Wigdor filed a complaint with the EEOC on behalf of Deborah Dugan alleging that she was unlawfully stripped of her role as President and CEO of The Recording Academy in retaliation for her complaints of gender discrimination, voting irregularities, financial mismanagement and conflicts of interest at the Academy.[39] The case prompted widespread controversy surrounding the credibility of the awards[40][41] and reportedly caused Taylor Swift to cancel a surprise performance at the ceremony in solidary with Dugan.[42]  Hours before the ceremony, Wigdor publicly called on the Recording Academy to immediately reinstate Dugan as CEO.[43] Alicia Keys, the ceremony’s host, appeared to reference Dugan’s allegations during her opening monologue.[44] Other celebrity musicians who have publicly backed Dugan amid the controversy include Nicki Minaj,[45] Sheryl Crow,[46] Chuck D,[47] Sean Combs[48] and Tyler, the Creator.[49] Later that year, The Weeknd accused the Recording Academy of ongoing corruption after his chart-topping studio album After Hours was shut out of the nominations for the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.[50] Due to Wigdor's representation of Dugan, he was named to Billboard's Top Music Lawyers list in 2020.[51]

In April 2020, Wigdor became a Forbes contributor and began publishing articles about employment discrimination, sexual harassment and whistleblower retaliation on the Forbes website.[52]

On May 5, 2020, multiple media outlets reported that Wigdor represented several women in an investigation led by the New York Attorney General's office into sexual harassment allegations at NBC News, including Megyn Kelly and Linda Vester.[53][54]

On May 8, 2020, it was revealed that Wigdor represented Tara Reade in her sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden.[7] On May 11, Wigdor sent a letter to Biden urging him to authorize a search of his Senate papers housed at the University of Delaware for a copy of a sexual harassment complaint that Reade said she filed against Biden in 1993.[55] Wigdor also pressed the Secretary of the United States Senate to authorize a similar search for documents related to the complaint. On May 22, it was reported that Wigdor’s firm no longer represented Reade.[56] Wigdor told the press that the decision was “by no means a reflection on whether then-Senator Biden sexually assaulted Ms. Reade” and that his views on the allegations had not changed.[56]

On July 1, 2020, it was reported that Wigdor represented the victim in a sexual misconduct case that led to the termination of Fox News host Ed Henry.[57] On July 20, Wigdor filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Jennifer Eckhart alleging that Henry had sexually harassed and raped her.[58] The lawsuit further alleged that Fox News supported and promoted Henry after it received multiple complaints of sexually inappropriate behavior against him, and only fired him once it became aware of a forthcoming lawsuit. Fox News on-air talent Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Howard Kurtz and Gianno Caldwell were also accused of sexual harassment in the lawsuit.[58]

Wigdor currently represents attorney Marla Crawford in a high-profile retaliation lawsuit alleging that top lawyers at Goldman Sachs covered up allegations of sexual misconduct by the investment bank's head of litigation toward a junior female colleague.[59] Crawford claimed that investigators dismissed her attempts to come forward with relevant information about the conduct in question, followed by Goldman Sachs terminating her employment in an apparent effort to silence her.[60]

Harvey Weinstein cases

Wigdor has represented at least six victims of alleged sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein.[61] Three of Wigdor’s clients, Wedil David,[62] Kaja Sokola[63] and Dominique Huett,[64] filed civil lawsuits alleging that they were sexually assaulted by Weinstein after he invited them to meet with him to discuss potential acting roles. Another client of Wigdor's, Tarale Wulff, testified during Weinstein’s criminal rape trial in New York that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in 2005.[65] Weinstein was convicted of criminal sexual assault and rape in the third degree, and received a sentence of 23 years in state prison.[66][67]

After it was reported that Weinstein reached a tentative $25 million settlement agreement with his accusers,[68] Wigdor publicly rejected the deal.[69][70] Two other Weinstein accusers, Zelda Perkins and Rowena Chiu, later retained Wigdor to file their own objections to the proposed settlement.[71] On July 14, 2020, one day after Wigdor filed a 36-page brief arguing that the proposed settlement was unfair to Weinstein's victims and should have been dismissed, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein held a 20-minute hearing in which he swiftly rejected preliminary approval of the settlement and denounced some of its terms as "obnoxious."[72]

In recognition of his central role in the Weinstein cases and other high-profile legal matters, Wigdor received the New York Law Journal's Distinguished Leader award and landed on The Hollywood Reporter's Top 100 Power Lawyers list.[73][74] He was also awarded a Band 1 ranking by Chambers and Partners[75] and was named a Top 100 attorney in the New York metropolitan area by Super Lawyers.[76]