David Huberman, a former nonequity partner at McDermott Will & Emery, is suing the firm for $104,166.67 in pay he alleges he was promised via a firmwide increase in salary for U.S.-based income partners in 2022, according to a lawsuit filed in Illinois state court on Wednesday.
In the filing, Huberman, represented by lawyers from the Garfinkel Group out of Chicago, said he worked as an income partner in McDermott’s transactions practice, regularly representing Israeli companies in their initial public offerings in the U.S.
He said that although he was hired at an annual salary of $300,000 in April 2021, an email from McDermott chair Ira Coleman in December 2021 stated that all “U.S. income partners” would receive a pay raise to $425,000 starting in January 2022.
Huberman’s employment contract stated that he was employed by McDermott out of the firm’s Chicago office, though Huberman lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is certified to practice law in Illinois.
Huberman said he heard from the firm that he couldn’t get the pay raise because “he resided in Israel and was therefore not a U.S. income partner.”
But Huberman states that since he was an employee of McDermott’s Chicago office, he should receive compensatory backpay for the period of January 2022, when the new pay structure took effect, to October 2022, when he made a lateral move over to Greenberg Traurig, also in Tel Aviv.
In total, Huberman is asking for the difference between his original salary and what he believes it should have been, adding up to $104,166.67.
Huberman alleges that McDermott’s failure to pay him the new salary for U.S. income partners violated the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act. His suit was filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County on Nov. 29.
Huberman’s lawyers at the Garfinkel Group did not immediately return a message seeking comment, while a McDermott spokesperson declined to comment.
