Douglas Wigdor facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Douglas Wigdor
Born	Douglas Wigdor (1968-09-26) September 26, 1968 (age 56)
Alma mater	Washington University in St. Louis (BA) Columbus School of Law (JD) St Cross College, Oxford
Occupation	Lawyer
Employer	Wigdor LLP

Douglas Holden Wigdor (born September 26, 1968) is a founding partner of the law firm Wigdor LLP, and works as a litigator in New York City, specializing in anti-discrimination law. Wigdor is best known for representing seven victims of alleged ... by Harvey Weinstein, the hotel maid in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn ... case, over twenty employees at Fox News in ... and discrimination cases, and NFL coaches Brian Flores, Steve Wilks, and Ray Horton in a 2022 class action lawsuit against the National Football League alleging racist and discriminatory practices against Black coaches.

Education

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

Early career

Wigdor clerked for Judge Arthur D. Spatt in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York for two years. He also worked as an attorney in the Suffolk County district attorney’s office. From there, Wigdor moved to large corporate defense firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he mainly represented companies accused of discrimination.

Dissatisfied with his work defending management accused of wrongdoing, Wigdor founded his own plaintiff-side law firm in 2003 with fellow Morgan Lewis attorney Kenneth P. Thompson, who would later become the Brooklyn District Attorney. Later that year, Wigdor 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. Early in his career, Wigdor coined the phrase “recessionary discrimination” to describe the use of the economy as a pretext for discrimination.

Notable cases

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. 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. In December 2020, Wigdor and Diallo both appeared in the Netflix original docu-series about the case, Room 2806: The Accusation.

In terms of discrimination cases against large financial groups, he has represented clients in a gender discrimination case against Dresdner and pregnancy discrimination cases against Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. Other notable cases he has represented have included a racial discrimination case on behalf of actor Rob Brown against Macy’s, and the representation of Charles Oakley against James Dolan and Madison Square Garden.

Harvey Weinstein cases

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After it was reported that Weinstein reached a tentative $25 million settlement agreement with his accusers, Wigdor publicly rejected the deal. Two other Weinstein accusers, Zelda Perkins and Rowena Chiu, later retained Wigdor to file their own objections to the proposed settlement. 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." Wigdor continued to represent clients in suits against Weinstein and other parties, including model Sara Ziff and Julia Ormond, both in 2023.

Sean Combs cases

..... The suit was settled one day later. His filing first introduced the term “freak off”, which became the subject of a wider criminal investigation into Diddy’s behavior and properties. When discussing the impact of the original suit on further investigations, Vanity Fair wrote that “If this framing was legitimately helpful—the suit contained detailed accounts of Combs’s alleged abuse—it also spoke to Wigdor’s facility for shaping public narrative.”

NFL race discrimination class action

On February 1, 2022, Wigdor filed a race discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, New York Giants, Miami Dolphins, and Denver Broncos on behalf of former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, in addition to Steve Wilks and Ray Horton. The lawsuit accused the NFL of conducting sham interviews with Black and minority head coach candidates in order to show compliance with the Rooney Rule. The complaint alleged that a series of text messages Flores received from New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick revealed the Giants decided to hire Brian Daboll as head coach three days before Flores was interviewed for the position. Flores also accused the Broncos of conducting a sham head coach interview with him in 2019. The lawsuit further claimed that Flores was pressured to tank games by Dolphins team owner Stephen Ross and offered $100,00 per game lost, and that he was also pressured to tamper with a quarterback. The three teams each denied Flores' allegations, while NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called the league's record on diversity "unacceptable" and vowed to reevaluate its diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Asked about the allegations in a pre-Super Bowl interview, President Joe Biden criticized the NFL for its lack of diversity among head coaches.

NY1 age and gender discrimination lawsuit

Wigdor represented five longtime female news anchors at NY1 in an age and gender discrimination lawsuit against Charter Communications, the station's parent company. The women accused Charter of cutting their airtime and giving them fewer opportunities for promotion compared to men and younger women. Global media attention in the lawsuit prompted the New York City Council to introduce legislation to combat ageism in the workplace.

On December 31, 2020, The New York Times reported that Wigdor reached a settlement with Charter that included the women leaving the station. After the settlement, the women accused Charter of retaliating against them by reneging on its promises to submit their work for Emmy Awards.

Amazon race discrimination lawsuit

On March 1, 2021, Wigdor filed a lawsuit on behalf of Amazon Web Services manager Charlotte Newman revealing allegations that Amazon routinely underpaid and under-promoted Black employees in its corporate offices. The lawsuit accused Amazon of widespread "de-leveling" of Black employees by hiring them into lower roles than they qualified for. .....

Other notable work

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.

Wigdor also represented the former Chief of Staff to Adam Neumann in a pregnancy discrimination complaint against WeWork.

..... He has also worked on a discrimination complaint against Intel.

Awards

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In 2020, Wigdor received the New York Law Journal's Distinguished Leader award and landed on The Hollywood Reporter's Top 100 Power Lawyers list, a list he returned to in 2024. Wigdor was also named to Billboard's Top Music Lawyers list in 2020, 2021, and 2023.

Wigdor was awarded a Band 1 ranking by Chambers and Partners and has been named a Top 100 attorney in the New York metro area by Super Lawyers from 2007-09 and 2013-24. City & State named Wigdor to its annual Law Power 100 list in 2021, noting that he has "levied cases against some of the most powerful players in the business and political worlds – and won."

Wigdor's firm has received national recognition in U.S. News & World Report's annual law firm rankings and was named among the most fearsome litigation firms by BTI Consulting Group. His firm has also won The National Law Journal's Law Firm of the Year award in the categories of age discrimination, civil rights, employment rights, racial discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination. In 2021, Wigdor LLP received a Band 1 ranking from Chambers and Partners and was selected to the shortlist for Labor and Employment Law Firm of the Year by Chambers USA and has been ranked by the publication for six years. Wigdor was named to the Forbes Top 200 Lawyers list, and LawDragon’s “500 Leading Lawyers in America” list in 2024.