Law Firm’s Harassment Damages Halved : Ruling: Judge allows punitive award of $3.5 million to former secretary of Baker & McKenzie over a partner’s abuse. He says firm has acted to curb such activity.

A judge upheld jury findings of sexual harassment against the world’s largest law firm and one of its partners Monday, but he reduced a secretary’s record $7.1-million damage award by about half.

There was ample evidence that attorney Martin Greenstein harassed numerous women over a four-year period, including plaintiff Rena Weeks, and that Baker & McKenzie “continued to employ him with a conscious disregard of the rights” of the female employees, said Superior Court Judge John Munter.

Munter cut Weeks’ punitive damages against Baker & McKenzie from $6.9 million to $3.5 million. He noted that the lower amount, 5% of the firm’s net worth, was the sum requested from the jury by one of Weeks’ lawyers.

Although the firm failed to take reasonable steps to protect Weeks and other women, its conduct “was not the product of a deliberate and purposeful policy aimed at violating the rights of anyone,” Munter wrote.

He said that before the suit went to trial, Baker & McKenzie strengthened its anti-sexual harassment program and fired Greenstein, who had spent 22 years with the firm.

Noting that the reduced sum was 70 times the $50,000 jurors awarded Weeks for emotional distress, Munter said: “An award of more than $3.5 million is excessive in terms of what is required to achieve deterrence.”

He also noted that the firm will have to pay an additional amount, yet to be determined, for Weeks’ legal fees. Her lawyers have requested $2.7 million.

The reduced amount is still believed to be the largest ever awarded in a California sexual harassment case reported by Jury Verdicts Weekly, according to the Santa Rosa-based publication.

Baker & McKenzie said it was disappointed by Munter’s refusal to overturn the verdict but promised to use “lessons learned in this case” to combat sexual harassment.

Weeks, 40, worked for the 1,700-lawyer firm in Palo Alto for three months in 1991, including about a month as secretary to Greenstein, a partner specializing in trademark law.

She testified that after a luncheon at a local restaurant, Greenstein dumped candies in a breast pocket of her blouse, touched her breast, pulled her arms back from behind and said, “Let’s see which one (breast) is bigger.”

She said Greenstein later lunged at her breasts in the office, grabbed her hips on another occasion and made sexually suggestive comments at a luncheon.

Seven other women testified that Greenstein had grabbed them, propositioned them or made lewd remarks in a series of incidents dating back to 1987 at the firm’s Chicago and Palo Alto offices.