'Increasingly Difficult': In Davis Polk Retaliation Trial Ex-M&A Leader Talks About Guiding Plaintiff

John Bick, the former leader of Davis Polk & Wardwell’s mergers and acquisitions practice on Tuesday testified about the decision-making that led to former associate Kaloma Cardwell’s “time to go” discussion in 2018.

Cardwell, the only Black male in Davis Polk’s 2014 associate class, is pursuing a retaliation suit against the firm and three individual defendants, including Bick and former managing partner Thomas Reid. Bick retired from Davis Polk and took on an “honorary” position as senior counsel in 2021, he testified; Reid is now chief legal officer at Comcast.

During the first week of testimony in the trial, which began Jan. 8, a series of current and former Davis Polk professional development employees introduced jurors to the concept of a “time to go” conversation, in which associates are told they need to find a new job but are not fired on the spot.

Cardwell was told to find a new job in the next three months, according to prior testimony. Bick testified that he was “part of the group” that decided Cardwell’s time had come amid alleged ongoing performance issues.

Bick said he and Reid were told that staffing Cardwell on cases was becoming “increasingly difficult” because he was “still operating as a first- or second-year, as a practical matter” despite having been at the firm for more than three years.

Bick said he had previously spent time looking for work for Cardwell, whose hours dropped precipitously in the winter of 2016-17.

“I’m just walking the halls and talking to different partners,” Bick said, noting that he specifically sought out partners who would be good teachers.

Bick and Cardwell were also paired up through Davis Polk’s Career Advisor Program, and Cardwell’s attorney David Jeffries asked Bick a series of pointed questions about that relationship.

“You were his CAP advisor?” Jeffries asked.

“Yes,” Bick replied.

“And he had performance issues?” Jeffries asked.

“Yes,” Bick said.

“And you didn’t give him a call to see how you could help him out?” Jeffries asked.

Davis Polk’s attorneys at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison offered an objection, which U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods of the Southern District of New York sustained.

Bick went on to testify that the CAP program wasn’t the avenue through which he sought to help Cardwell.

“Stepping back, I was giving Kaloma a lot more attention than anyone else in my career advisor program in 2017,” Bick said, referring to his efforts to find work for Cardwell.

After the jurors left the courtroom Tuesday afternoon, Paul Weiss partner Susanna Buergel asked Woods to issue a limiting instruction about the CAP testimony.

Woods noted that Jeffries’ “tone expressed incredulity about the lack of outreach by Mr. Bick.”

“The tenor of some of your questions suggested there’s something improper—illegal, in this context—about his failure to or choice not to reach out to Mr. Cardwell to meet with him in his office, to take him out for lunch, to ask him out for a cup of coffee,” Woods said. “You asked a series of questions of that ilk.”

After hearing from both sides, Woods said Jeffries did not appear to be contending that Bick’s decisions not to socialize with Cardwell “are themselves adverse employment actions,” but he suggested the parties work together to compose a potential limiting instruction.