Ms. Yelenick, 62, did not sign the letter, but after looking at a draft, she said in an interview, she “disagreed strongly because the letter contained inaccuracies, including the process<br />that female partners could use to join any potential class or collective action that a court certifies.”<br />“My decades of experience,” she said, “has made me aware of the many ways — both overt<br />and more subtle — in which both institutional structures and informal practices continue to work to impede the advancement, and discount the contributions, of women.”<br />The third female partner who joined the lawsuit is Jaroslawa Z. Johnson, an American<br />lawyer who headed Chadbourne’s office in Kiev, Ukraine, for a decade.<br />Another major factor in partner pay packets is merit pay; Chadbourne in 2015 distributed such money to 44 percent of the male partners<br />but to only 28 percent of the female partners, according to the filings.<br />Female law partners on average earn about one-third, or about $300,000, less annually than their male colleagues, according<br />to a survey of 2,100 partners at law firms nationwide released last fall by a legal search firm, Major, Lindsey & Africa.<br />She remained in Kiev after the office closed in December 2014, and noted during her time there<br />that firm data “showed that my revenue generation was higher than many male partners, but my compensation was much lower.”<br />“Male partners,” she said in an email, “who generated less revenue annually made much more than<br />I did.” She decided to join the lawsuit, she said, once she read Ms. Campbell’s complaint.
