Laura Zubulake worked for a demeaning boss, was excluded from client outings and had co-workers who were strip club regulars. But she still can’t wait to get back to Wall Street.
For Zubulake, who emerged with a $29.3 million victory in her three-year sexual harassment case against UBS, it wasn’t about a payout, it was about exposing a hostile work environment.
“I still love Wall Street,” she told The Post. And despite her nightmare work experience, she’s pounding the downtown pavement for another job in finance.
The 44-year-old former UBS Warburg salesperson was vague when asked if potential employers would discriminate against her since she took her last employer to court, saying she couldn’t speculate on that. But she does admit that it’s been tough to land a new job while battling UBS.
“I’ve been looking for work for the past several years and will continue to do so,” said Zubulake, who worked at UBS from 1999 to 2001, until, she says, she was fired for complaining to U.S. employment regulators.
She first filed a grievance with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August 2001, launching her lawsuit six months later.
Last week, her persistence paid off when a panel awarded her $9.1 million in compensatory damages and almost $20.2 million in punitive damages.
“Hopefully, this will put other firms on the alert,” said Zubulake in her first in-depth interview since the trial ended. “I think that was the intent, as most of the award was for punitive damages.”
She’s now figuring out her next steps. The mild-mannered Zubulake, who wrote a technical book on “The Complete Guide to Convertible Securities Worldwide,” said she wasn’t sure if she’d pen a tell-all about her UBS troubles.
During the trial, Zubulake said she was constantly belittled and even physically isolated from her male colleagues by a new manager, Matthew Chapin – who still works at UBS, though no longer in a managerial position. “He was pushed back to a sales position,” she said.
While working for Chapin, Zubulake said she was excluded from client outings to baseball games, golf courses and even the Manhattan strip club Scores.
“He removed me from key account responsibilities and even physically isolated me by moving me to an aisle across from my male colleagues,” she said. “He also openly confronted me about issues and made sexist comments about ‘chicks.’ ”
While Zubulake isn’t the first Wall Street woman to claim discrimination, she was the first to go to trial rather than accept a settlement. That meant she took her chances – risking time and money.
Unlike thousands of other women before her with similar grievances, Zubulake refused to settle the case, which would have forced her to sign a confidentiality agreement and would have allowed UBS to keep their gender-discrimination practices under wraps.
Legal and workplace experts say Zubulake’s huge payday will likely reverberate throughout the financial community.
“Wall Street continues to have serious problems with its treatment of women and it needs to change,” said James Finberg, a sex discrimination legal expert and partner with Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein. “If every person were to get that much money, it would make a difference. So much of the settlement was punitive, which shows it’s got to stop.”
Cold Cash on Wall Street
Financial hits in sexual discrimination cases:
UBS – $29.3 million in 2005
Morgan Stanley – $54 million in 2004
Merrill Lynch- more than $100 million over several years.
Smith Barney – more than $100 million in 1998