The suit was settled by October, and within a few weeks The Observer was one of many participating in a citywide parlor game, guessing about Mr. Charney’s bounty. (Scatological insults might have upped his money, we posited, but the fact that Mr. Charney destroyed his hard drive by boiling it twice with hot water and pounding it with a hammer may have hurt him.)

A deed filed in city records suggests that the Sullivan settlement wasn’t minor: Mr. Charney and a partner just paid $1.495 million for a penthouse at the newly converted condo at 93rd Street and Broadway.

According to the floor plan, they’ll have two bedrooms, a 17-foot-long living/dining room and an L-shaped terrace that stretches 50 feet on each wing. The listing broker, Halstead’s Louise Phillips Forbes, declined to name the buyers, but she said the place was on the market for less than a week before “they scooped it up.”

The 987-square-foot terrace, nearly as big as the interior space, is edged by high walls, which means there’s privacy instead of views. “I would consider it extremely private, with an opportunity to take your inside living outdoors,” the broker said.

When Colin Powell and his wife bought in the building, The Observer reported last year, they chose an apartment without the $135,000 “upgrade package” offered by developers (with name-brand appliances and subway tiles). But Mr. Charney’s apartment came with the Sub-Zero and other bonuses, which means he might be living more glamorously than the former secretary of state, at least as far as kitchen appliances go.

Although it was a P.R. nightmare for S&C—where’s Michael Clayton when you need him?—Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell offered countless hours of entertainment and schadenfreude for the Big Law chattering class. The lawsuit was first filed in January, so it took nine months to deliver this baby. Now it’s over. A case that started off with a bang, including a raft of media interviews by the plaintiff (on Canadian television!), has ended with a whimper. But how small (or large) a whimper?

Because the settlement terms were secret, lawyers and legal bloggers immediately started speculating over Charney’s payday. Professor Arthur Leonard of New York Law School—who followed the case closely on his blog, Leonard Link—breathlessly wondered: “[W]ill Aaron Charney ever have to work again?” Professor Scott Moss of Marquette University Law School, writing on the widely read PrawfsBlawg blog, was more conservative: “Yes, unless Charney wants to experience his ‘early retirement’ in a rural trailer park.”

Professor Moss, a former employment discrimination lawyer, took a rather wonkish approach to the case. “A very successful early settlement, from the plaintiff’s perspective, usually is about 1-3 years’ pay,” he wrote. But “it’s more common for a good early settlement to be about 6 months’ salary, which would be less than $100K. Settlements that, like Charney’s, occur before much discovery tend to be on the smaller side.”

But if S&C’s goal was to avoid discovery, including potentially embarrassing depositions of its partners—which, even if confidential, probably would have been leaked—wouldn’t the firm have been willing to pay a pretty penny to make the case go away? Note the timing of the settlement: at the height of the fall recruiting season, when law students are weighing offers from competing firms.

“Employment discrimination settlements almost never are a gold mine, and we shouldn’t speculate that this case was,” Professor Moss soberly concluded. But every other aspect of this case has been fodder for groundless speculation, so why break precedent?

Herewith, an attempt to calculate the size of the settlement in Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell, keyed to some of the case’s strangest moments, which might have exerted disproportionate influence on a jury.

Let’s begin with $500,000. It’s a nice round number, and a rough approximation of two to three years’ pay for Charney. We’ll then adjust it based on various events and allegations in the case (which we assume to be true for purposes of this exercise).

1. The Filing of the Lawsuit. Charney sued S&C by himself—while still employed by, and collecting a paycheck from, the firm. His allegations were shocking and salacious. In addition to the infamous “bend over” comment, Charney claimed that the same partner handed him a document and said, “I just took a shit while reading this, and some might still be on there for you.” Ewww!

Plusses (from Charney’s perspective): the lurid nature of the allegations; the general unpleasantness of the S&C partners, if Charney’s claims about them are to be believed; the case’s vague resemblance to the movie Philadelphia. Add $427,000.

Minuses: the weirdness of suing a firm while still working there; Charney’s shameless publicity campaign—including the announcement of his lawsuit on the “Greedy Associates” message board. Subtract $113,000.

2. The Untimely Demise of the Charney Hard Drive. The destruction of the hard drive to Aaron Charney’s computer became a source of major contention in the case. S&C complained that Charney had destroyed evidence of his theft of confidential information and documents; Charney claimed he thought S&C wanted him to destroy his hard drive, to protect client confidences.

Regardless of why Charney destroyed his hard drive, his thoroughness lies beyond dispute. Ever the methodical lawyer, he boiled the hard drive in hot water, pounded it with a hammer, boiled it a second time, and then tossed the remains. Double, double, toil and trouble!

Minus: the zeal with which Charney attacked his hard drive might be read as consciousness of guilt. Subtract $147,000.

3. “We’ve represented the Nazis.” So why did Charney treat his hard drive as if it were possessed by a demon? Intimidation, he claimed. In a deposition, he testified about a secret settlement meeting with various S&C partners—specifically, threats by one partner “invoking the fact that the firm had represented the Nazis and … that people wrote a book about them representing the Nazis and no one cared.”

Plus: Wow, Nazis. Bad—very bad. A New York jury would not look favorably upon this alleged boast. Add $1,242,000.

So where does that leave us? Let’s see, we get … $1,909,000. That sounds about right, doesn’t it?

Or maybe not. In fact, some might call it laughable. But then, that would merely make it the perfect ending for a case that was an absurd, over-the-top spectacle from start to finish.

Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell, R.I.P. You will be missed.

Here's the story: Mr. Charney, who is gay, launched a formal complaint with the New York State Supreme Court against the white shoe firm, saying that he’d been subjected to sexual harassment at the hands of an uncouth partner. (Remarks about fecal matter on documents and bending over were allegedly made; the firm categorically denied all of Mr. Charney’s claims.) Well, the salacious saga has finally come to a puttering close…

The New York Law Journal reports:

Sullivan & Cromwell said Thursday it had reached a settlement with former associate Aaron Charney, who sued the New York law firm earlier this year for sexual orientation discrimination.

"Aaron Charney and Sullivan & Cromwell have resolved their differences in connection with all pending disputes between them," the firm said through a spokesman.

Charney's lawyer, Daniel Alterman of Alterman & Boop, did not return a call for comment.

The settlement, the terms of which are confidential, brings to a close a dispute that had fascinated the New York legal community over the past several months, both with its allegations concerning partners at one of the city's most prestigious firms and its bizarre twists and turns in the courtroom.

Breaking: Sullivan & Cromwell Settles with Aaron Charney!!! [Above the Law]

These are not great moments in lawyering, the kind that puts The New York Times’ Linda Greenhouse on A1. This is “Lawyers Behaving Badly.”

Late on the afternoon of Jan. 31, approximately two weeks after filing a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against Sullivan & Cromwell, fourth-year associate attorney Aaron Brett Charney sat in a carpeted meeting room at the Penn Club on 44th Street, discussing a settlement.

Representing Sullivan & Cromwell were firm partners David Braff and Gandolfo DiBlasi. Also there was Gera Grinberg, the senior associate with whom Mr. Charney had worked closely, in what everyone agrees was a productive professional relationship that Mr. Charney argued had prompted some of the harassment.

Accompanying Mr. Grinberg were his two lawyers, partners Steven Spielvogel and Edward Gallion of Gallion & Spielvogel.

Four days after that conversation, Mr. Charney boiled his home computer’s hard drive in hot water, attacked it with a hammer, boiled it again and then discarded the remains.

Sullivan & Cromwell argues that this action presents grounds for the dismissal of Mr. Charney’s suit.

But his lawyers respond that their client was frightened by threats from the powerful law firm and had interpreted talk about erasing his hard drive as a condition of settlement as an instruction.

As an example, Michael Kennedy, an attorney for Mr. Charney, described an alleged “rant” by Mr. DiBlasi.

“That rant said, ‘Sullivan & Cromwell is invincible.’ That rant says, ‘We defended the Nazis, and nobody can do anything or cared. We’ll crush you like a bug,’” Mr. Kennedy said, quoting his client’s recollections at a Feb. 22 hearing in the New York State Supreme Court. “Those aren’t settlement negotiations; those are threats.”

“He was so terrified, he would have done virtually anything,” Mr. Kennedy declared.

“His version of the Jan. 31 meeting is totally false,” said Sullivan & Cromwell spokesman Paul Caminiti.

The most recent hearing, on March 14, kept that meeting at the center of the case, when Mr. Kennedy requested the opportunity to depose three of the attendees: Mr. DiBlasi, Mr. Grinberg—who is on paid leave—and Mr. Gallion.

Mr. Kennedy returned to the question of Mr. Charney’s state of mind in destroying his hard drive.

“That really was the commencement of what was a very significant and protracted reign of terror,” he said, his tone insistently steady. “They have raised the issue, the specter of spoliation, and we need an opportunity and I think deserve an opportunity to be able to lay it to rest.”

“The suggestion by Mr. Kennedy is...just rhetoric but not reality,” Charles Stillman, a lawyer for Sullivan & Cromwell, coolly responded.

According to Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Grinberg was the only party at the Penn Club meeting permitted to take notes, and he gave them to Mr. Gallion for safekeeping. But Mr. Gallion then “destroyed” them.

Now there was destruction of evidence committed by another former Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer, Mr. Gallion—this time a document with specific, potentially exculpatory information.

According to sources, Mr. Grinberg first retained Mr. Spielvogel, who had been one of his professors, as his attorney in the matter; Mr. Spielvogel then brought in Mr. Gallion. As is common practice, Sullivan & Cromwell is paying Mr. Grinberg’s counsel fees.

“There was a meeting...and it should be very clear that it was Mr. Grinberg who selected Mr. Gallion to be his lawyer,” Mr. Stillman said in court, distancing the firm from Mr. Gallion. “A decade ago, Mr. Gallion had been an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell.”

During the hearing, Mr. Kennedy was asked to explain why he couldn’t produce the notes to the meeting that his client, Mr. Charney, said he’d attended. Mr. Kennedy replied that Mr. Grinberg’s current lawyer, Gary Ireland, had informed him that they’d been destroyed.

Flustered, Mr. Ireland—who up to this point had been sitting in the gallery and taking his own notes—stood up and hustled to the podium to introduce himself. “It is my understanding from Mr. Gallion that [those notes] were destroyed,” he said, later adding: “They are the subject of the complaint before the Disciplinary Committee.”

Mr. Stillman interrupted, insisting that it was improper for Mr. Ireland to reveal such a matter. Justice Fried seemed to agree and called for a recess.

Exactly who is to blame for the continuing discussions over an initially confidential meeting depends at least in part on where you stand at counsel table.

The Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers used the hard drive destruction to raise questions about Mr. Charney’s judgment—especially since, as they pointed out, between the settlement talk and the hammering and boiling several days later, Mr. Charney had appeared before a judge, who advised him to treat all material related to the case “as if it were your own client’s confidential documents.”

For their part, Mr. Charney’s lawyers agree about the meeting’s significance. But what exactly Sullivan & Cromwell seeks on the hard drive hasn’t yet been articulated.

It appears that the ancillary litigation surrounding the circumstances of the settlement talk will continue to dominate the court proceedings.

Noting that Mr. Charney had retained counsel between the settlement talk and the destruction of his hard drive, Mr. Stillman informed the judge last week, “I will probably be coming back to you to examine his lawyers.”

But how far he had fallen!

He was consulting with labor lawyers from Alterman & Boop, the scrappy but respected Worth Street firm with the name out of Dickens, where callers get piped Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon while they’re on hold. The mission was twofold: to keep alive a lawsuit he’d filed against the 128-year-old firm charging he’d been the victim of harassment and retaliation from partners because of his sexual orientation; and to prepare his defense against the countersuit the firm had filed against him. But they amounted to the same task: the salvation of his career. By the end of the day, the firm had filed papers with the court that essentially ensure he’ll never get work in Big Law in this town again.

Mr. Charney had been a star on Jan. 16, when he filed his discrimination suit. A certain Manhattan subculture quickly settled down for a juicy exposé of life inside The Firms. There was plenty of Lifetime Original material in his suit—like his claim that partner Eric Krautheimer once tossed a document at Mr. Charney’s feet and said “bend over and pick it up—I’m sure you like that.” He named names, told stories and basically lit up the increasingly influential legal blogosphere.

But very quickly the ground beneath the lawyer, the only child of a Syracuse-area clothing-retail family, shifted precipitously.

He was turned out of the firm, and before long a team of 10 lawyers could be seen at 60 Centre Street, pressing their case for a countersuit against him for stealing company files and disseminating embarrassing material about big-firm clients like Goldman Sachs.

The firm managed to turn the dispute from a referendum on the culture of the firm into a referendum on Mr. Charney’s suitability as an associate.

While the entire affair has only entered the public consciousness in the last four weeks, both parties admit that the trouble with Aaron Charney began as long ago as last spring.

In court documents, Mr. Charney says that he first lodged a complaint of sexual orientation discrimination in May 2006.

He writes that 10 days later, partner David Harms took him aside to tell him that two of the partners about whom he had complained “denied making any discriminatory comments.”

But in an e-mail sent to all firm members, chairman H. Rodgin Cohen asserted a different version of the story.

“Mr. Charney first raised assertions of this sort in May 2006 through a lawyer, and his assertions were followed by a multi-million dollar demand. The Firm promptly investigated his assertions at that time, and rejected Mr. Charney’s money demand.” (According to a source familiar with Sullivan & Cromwell’s side of the litigation, Mr. Charney initially asked for $5 million, and Sullivan & Cromwell offered “a very small fraction” of that. Mr. Charney referred calls to his lawyers, and through its recently retained public-relations firm, Sullivan & Cromwell declined to comment.)

Mr. Charney’s complaint makes no mention of settlement conversations, but describes retaliation against him that endured for the following seven months.

He says he was denied opportunities to mentor summer associates, encouraged to relocate to a foreign office and that partners started claiming that his working relationship with another associate was a romantic one and that it posed a “management problem.”

In his complaint, Mr. Charney claimed, he was told that a Sullivan partner referred to their friendship as “unnatural” and that another partner thought they were too close. (That Sullivan associate, Gera Grinberg, has since been placed on paid leave.)

In an interview with The Observer the day he filed his complaint, Mr. Charney denied that he had named any price after filing his internal complaint. But if the Sullivan & Cromwell number of $5 million is to be believed—and the firm has an interest in spreading a number as high as possible—then the price tag tripled in the more than seven months that passed between those settlement talks and Mr. Charney’s now famous serving of papers on the Infirmation.com “Greedy Associates” message board.

His summons requested $15 million in damages.

Eight days after Mr. Charney filed his complaint, a related article appeared on page B7 of The Wall Street Journal.

Ostensibly about Sullivan & Cromwell’s attempts to address profound associate dissatisfaction, the story contained a particularly intriguing nugget. In the course of attempting to model a review process on that conducted by firm client Goldman Sachs, a Sullivan & Cromwell partner had disseminated a copy of a confidential review, only partially redacting the subjects’ names and positions. It was easy to identify the four Goldman employees—The Journal wrote—“a fact that individuals close to Goldman and Sullivan describe as embarrassing.” (The firm alleges that Mr. Charney stole and leaked the document to The Journal.)

More than two weeks after Mr. Charney’s own filing, the press-shy firm responded in its own way: Rather than holding a press conference to denounce Mr. Charney, the firm chose the protected forum of a court filing.

The complaint accused him of stealing that confidential Goldman review from a partner’s office and leaking it to The Journal and of improperly obtaining his own performance reviews. It paints a picture of an untrustworthy and devious associate. Mr. Charney was fired the day the suit was filed.

“The debate was: ‘Would this help us or hurt us?’” said the source familiar with Sullivan & Cromwell’s legal strategy. “The downside in filing the suit was to prolong the story, to keep it on the front pages …. [But] we concluded that we were obligated to bring the lawsuit irrespective of what it did to us.”

But while Sullivan & Cromwell pains to paint their suit as a separate action prompted by the violation of a professional code of confidentiality, that doesn’t tell the full story.

“They were hurt and angry, it was simply an opportunity to hit back, which is what every client always wants,” commented one prominent New York litigator.

At a hearing at New York State Supreme Court last week, a team of about 10 lawyers represented the firm. Buffed and gleaming, sporting fine wool suits and gold wedding bands, they were the picture of corporate exactitude and deep pockets. When their trial lawyer, Charles Stillman, slipped his coat on, it was hard to miss the huge Bergdorf Goodman label. Employment lawyer Zachary Fasman’s pocket square was folded into four perfect points.

And then entered Mr. Charney’s legal team, a more disheveled crew of four, lead by jolly civil-rights lawyer Daniel L. Alterman.

“What happened to your arm?” he joked to Mr. Stillman, who was sporting a sling because of recent arthroscopic surgery. The crowd was quiet.

“You should see the other guy,” retorted Mr. Stillman.

More than halfway into the hour-long hearing before Judge Bernard Fried, convened to discuss the return of documents to Sullivan & Cromwell, came the revelation that the firm strategists couldn’t have dreamed up. As was quickly reported on legal blogs later that afternoon, including the Law Blog of The Journal and Above the Law, Mr. Stillman raised a “critical” issue of “the utmost seriousness.” He had learned the day before that Mr. Charney had “destroyed” his hard drive.

Mr. Alterman had struggled to explain his client’s actions; his further claim, that Mr. Charney simply e-mailed himself work in the course of working as an associate at the firm, might be more difficult to prove without Mr. Charney’s hard drive.

The next day, the lead story in The New York Law Journal was headlined: “Destroyed Hard Drive Becomes Focus of Hearing in S&C Suit.”

While the Sullivan & Cromwell team was patting itself on the back, Mr. Charney’s representatives consoled themselves with the fact that the judge hadn’t lost his cool when he was informed of the destruction.

Judge Fried instructed Mr. Charney to return to the court two affidavits by Feb. 14 accounting for what he had done with his hard drive and the documents he has returned to Sullivan & Cromwell.

On Feb. 13, Sullivan called on the judge to dismiss Mr. Charney’s complaint on the grounds that the case will reveal client and firm matters and secrets. In a footnote to the 22-page motion, the lawyers address Mr. Charney’s destruction of his hard drive with a snarl.

“Charney’s attempt to blame S&C for his willful destruction of material information in violation of the New York Penal Code is false, contemptible and will be addressed at the appropriate time,” the note reads.

Mr. Alterman declined to comment on the response.

On the site, associates at big law firms gripe about their treatment at the hands of the lawyers. But Mr. Charney’s wasn’t an ordinary complaint.

“Today I filed suit against my employer, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, alleging discrimination and retaliation by S&C based on my sexual orientation,” read his post, time-stamped at 11:04. “Below is the introduction to my Complaint.”

Papers served!

Mr. Charney’s complaint names eight Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers as purveyors of abuse.

According to the complaint, filed with the New York State Supreme Court, the harassment began slightly over a year ago. At one point, Mr. Charney alleges in his complaint, a partner named Eric Krautheimer tossed a document at Mr. Charney’s feet and said “bend over and pick it up—I’m sure you like that.”

Mr. Krautheimer declined to comment on the accusation, and referred The Observer to the coordinator of the august firm’s labor and employment practice, Theodore Rogers.

He in turn referred to a statement issued via e-mail by the firm that reads, in part: “The Firm categorically denies Mr. Charney’s allegations of discrimination and retaliation.”

There have been other discrimination complaints filed by gay lawyers against big firms: complaints about benefits for same-sex couples, or alleging sexual advances made by superiors in the workplace. But Mr. Charney’s is different, painting a brutal picture of locker-room machismo in one of Manhattan’s most prominent firms.

Insiders say Sullivan & Cromwell is well known for its buttoned-up culture.

“Sullivan & Cromwell is a distinguished firm with a well-known reserved culture,” said Alisa Levin, a principal at legal recruiter Greene-Levin-Snyder. “I would never go to S&C in anything other than a proper skirt suit, whereas I would go to just about every other firm in edgy dress.”

But in a survey of law firms drawn from anonymous interviews and published on the Web site Vault.com, the entry for Sullivan & Cromwell reads, in part: “Regarding acceptance of gays and lesbians, “it’s unfair that Cleary has the gay-friendly rep,” says a contact, “because S&C is undoubtedly at least as supportive.” Sexual orientation is a non-issue, as Sullivan “has many outspokenly gay partners and associates who are fully integrated into the firm’s professional and social life.”

Sullivan & Cromwell is a monster mergers-and-acquisition firm, 125 years old and as blue-blooded and white-shoed as they come.

Its history stretches back to its involvement in the creation of the Edison General Electric Company and U.S. Steel; last year, for the third year in a row, Bloomberg News named the firm the top deal advisor for its role in counseling on $487.9 billion in transactions. Among those deals, S&C represented AT&T in its $83.1 billion buyout of BellSouth, the highest-valued deal in the world in 2006.

But even a firm that powerful doesn’t want to be tarred as retrograde in its treatment of gay associates. And as for Mr. Charney, if a trial does not vindicate him—well, what’s that line about getting work in this town again?

“These cases are rare because it’s the kiss of death to go sue a law firm,” said Leslie Corwin, a shareholder in Greenberg Traurig, who specializes in representing law firms. “It’s a tough thing to do if that’s the profession you want to be in.”

PERHAPS UNSURPRISINGLY, THAT'S THE REASON Mr. Charney gives for the fact that he’ll be representing himself.

Mr. Charney said he called Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a legal advocacy organization that represents gay clients on civil-rights-related issues, to aid in his case.

“I called the hotline, spoke to the representative who answered, and was told I would hear back from them,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Days later they returned my call and informed me that they were not interested in pursuing my matter against S&C.”

(A representative at Lambda contacted by The Observer said it does not comment on these matters.)

So in his free time, he wrote the complaint himself, walking it into the courthouse he had only visited twice before in his three and a half years as a lawyer, Tuesday morning.

After Mr. Charney scanned in the entire 25-page complaint and sent it out to members of the press, he said he received a call from the Mr. Rogers, informing him that he was being placed on leave from the firm while it conducted an investigation. His BlackBerry went dead.

“You just sometimes step back and realize that if you don’t do it no one else will,” said Mr. Charney, on the phone from the west midtown apartment where he’ll be spending a lot of his time. “This was a personal decision. You don’t plunge into taking on Sullivan & Cromwell by taking a straw poll.”

In his complaint, Mr. Charney alleges several instances in which partners and co-workers made derogatory remarks either directly to him or to others about him, dating from the fall of 2005. He is seeking punitive and compensatory damages.

In a statement e-mailed to firm members worldwide, its chairman, H. Rodgin Cohen, refuted Mr. Charney’s assertions. And he didn’t stop there.

“Mr. Charney first raised assertions of this sort in May 2006 through a lawyer, and his assertions were followed by a multi-million dollar demand,” wrote Mr. Cohen. Mr. Charney said the conversations, never got that specific. “I had an attorney and there were lots of conversations. There wasn’t anything that we were definitive about.”

In the meantime, Mr. Charney has no plans, other than attending to his own case.

“The day has been a real blur …. I’m in a rather uncertain state,” he said.

He says he loved his practice at Sullivan & Cromwell.

“I haven’t thought at all about what happens the day after this ends,” he said. “I’d like to be working at the firm still on my current clients. I didn’t ask to be removed today.”

Mr. Charney grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., and attended Brown University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He continued his education immediately following that at Columbia University Law School, earning honors as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Sullivan & Cromwell was his first choice of firms; as he puts it, rather worshipfully, “It’s probably the world’s most famous law firm. I felt fortunate to be there.”

But the complaint doesn’t make him look like a very lucky guy. In it, Mr. Charney accuses partners of obsessively pursuing information about the extent of his relationship with another associate (who is, according to the complaint, heterosexual). In the course of a performance review, the complaint alleges that one partner, James Morphy, told Mr. Charney that other partners had complained about his relationship and that it “need[ed] to stop.”

In other example, he refers to “documentation for circulation to all S&C partners in General Practice” circulated by another partner, Benjamin Stapleton III, that refers to Mr. Charney and this other associate as being “joined at the hip” and working “closely (too closely).”

In the complaint, he alleges that a partner, Alexandra Korry, described the relationship as “unnatural” to another co-worker.

(Mr. Morphy did not return a call for comment; Mr. Stapleton and Ms. Korry referred The Observer to Mr. Rogers.)

Mr. Charney describes in the complaint meeting with a partner to lodge a formal complaint of sexual-orientation discrimination, a fact corroborated by the Sullivan & Cromwell statement.

“The Firm promptly investigated his assertions at that time, and rejected Mr. Charney’s money demand,” wrote Mr. Cohen.

And yet he stayed at Sullivan & Cromwell, a fact that clearly had his employers confused.

“Mr. Charney chose to remain associated with the Firm thereafter.”

Mr. Charney’s complaint alleges that partner Stephen Kotran admitted that it had not been a “real investigation.”

(Mr. Kotran did not return a call for comment.) He says one partner, Ms. Korry, e-mailed the partner with whom he had lodged his complaint to call him “a liar.” He says he was excluded from a firm mentorship program and that an administrator admitted that the partner in charge was “sending a message.” He asserts that Mr. Rogers and Mr. Morphy fabricated a work evaluation of Mr. Charney, saying it was from Mr. Kotran. The report said that Mr. Charney and this other associate insisted on being staffed together, and that this closeness “could be grounds to ‘drive them out of the firm.’” Mr. Kotran disavowed the report.

By the end of the day, the link to Mr. Charney’s complaint on infirmation.com had been taken down, and in place of his morning posting, this comment: “The post that began this thread has been deleted, consistent with our policy against naming specific firm employees in a manner that may be harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable, etc., etc.”

On the site, associates at big law firms gripe about their treatment at the hands of the lawyers. But Mr. Charney’s wasn’t an ordinary complaint.

“Today I filed suit against my employer, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, alleging discrimination and retaliation by S&C based on my sexual orientation,” read his post, time-stamped at 11:04. “Below is the introduction to my Complaint.”

Papers served!

Mr. Charney’s complaint names eight Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers as purveyors of abuse.

According to the complaint, filed with the New York State Supreme Court, the harassment began slightly over a year ago. At one point, Mr. Charney alleges in his complaint, a partner named Eric Krautheimer tossed a document at Mr. Charney’s feet and said “bend over and pick it up—I’m sure you like that.”

Mr. Krautheimer declined to comment on the accusation, and referred The Observer to the coordinator of the august firm’s labor and employment practice, Theodore Rogers.

He in turn referred to a statement issued via e-mail by the firm that reads, in part: “The Firm categorically denies Mr. Charney’s allegations of discrimination and retaliation.”

There have been other discrimination complaints filed by gay lawyers against big firms: complaints about benefits for same-sex couples, or alleging sexual advances made by superiors in the workplace. But Mr. Charney’s is different, painting a brutal picture of locker-room machismo in one of Manhattan’s most prominent firms.

Insiders say Sullivan & Cromwell is well known for its buttoned-up culture.

“Sullivan & Cromwell is a distinguished firm with a well-known reserved culture,” said Alisa Levin, a principal at legal recruiter Greene-Levin-Snyder. “I would never go to S&C in anything other than a proper skirt suit, whereas I would go to just about every other firm in edgy dress.”

But in a survey of law firms drawn from anonymous interviews and published on the Web site Vault.com, the entry for Sullivan & Cromwell reads, in part: “Regarding acceptance of gays and lesbians, “it’s unfair that Cleary has the gay-friendly rep,” says a contact, “because S&C is undoubtedly at least as supportive.” Sexual orientation is a non-issue, as Sullivan “has many outspokenly gay partners and associates who are fully integrated into the firm’s professional and social life.”

Sullivan & Cromwell is a monster mergers-and-acquisition firm, 125 years old and as blue-blooded and white-shoed as they come.

Its history stretches back to its involvement in the creation of the Edison General Electric Company and U.S. Steel; last year, for the third year in a row, Bloomberg News named the firm the top deal advisor for its role in counseling on $487.9 billion in transactions. Among those deals, S&C represented AT&T in its $83.1 billion buyout of BellSouth, the highest-valued deal in the world in 2006.

But even a firm that powerful doesn’t want to be tarred as retrograde in its treatment of gay associates. And as for Mr. Charney, if a trial does not vindicate him—well, what’s that line about getting work in this town again?

“These cases are rare because it’s the kiss of death to go sue a law firm,” said Leslie Corwin, a shareholder in Greenberg Traurig, who specializes in representing law firms. “It’s a tough thing to do if that’s the profession you want to be in.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, that’s the reason Mr. Charney gives for the fact that he’ll be representing himself.

Mr. Charney said he called Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a legal advocacy organization that represents gay clients on civil-rights-related issues, to aid in his case.

“I called the hotline, spoke to the representative who answered, and was told I would hear back from them,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Days later they returned my call and informed me that they were not interested in pursuing my matter against S&C.”

(A representative at Lambda contacted by The Observer said it does not comment on these matters.)

So in his free time, he wrote the complaint himself, walking it into the courthouse he had only visited twice before in his three and a half years as a lawyer, Tuesday morning.

After Mr. Charney scanned in the entire 25-page complaint and sent it out to members of the press, he said he received a call from the Mr. Rogers, informing him that he was being placed on leave from the firm while it conducted an investigation. His BlackBerry went dead.

“You just sometimes step back and realize that if you don’t do it no one else will,” said Mr. Charney, on the phone from the west midtown apartment where he’ll be spending a lot of his time. “This was a personal decision. You don’t plunge into taking on Sullivan & Cromwell by taking a straw poll.”

In his complaint, Mr. Charney alleges several instances in which partners and co-workers made derogatory remarks either directly to him or to others about him, dating from the fall of 2005. He is seeking punitive and compensatory damages.

In a statement e-mailed to firm members worldwide, its chairman, H. Rodgin Cohen, refuted Mr. Charney’s assertions. And he didn’t stop there.

“Mr. Charney first raised assertions of this sort in May 2006 through a lawyer, and his assertions were followed by a multi-million dollar demand,” wrote Mr. Cohen. Mr. Charney said the conversations, never got that specific. “I had an attorney and there were lots of conversations. There wasn’t anything that we were definitive about.”

In the meantime, Mr. Charney has no plans, other than attending to his own case.

“The day has been a real blur …. I’m in a rather uncertain state,” he said.

He says he loved his practice at Sullivan & Cromwell.

“I haven’t thought at all about what happens the day after this ends,” he said. “I’d like to be working at the firm still on my current clients. I didn’t ask to be removed today.”

Mr. Charney grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., and attended Brown University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He continued his education immediately following that at Columbia University Law School, earning honors as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Sullivan & Cromwell was his first choice of firms; as he puts it, rather worshipfully, “It’s probably the world’s most famous law firm. I felt fortunate to be there.”

But the complaint doesn’t make him look like a very lucky guy. In it, Mr. Charney accuses partners of obsessively pursuing information about the extent of his relationship with another associate (who is, according to the complaint, heterosexual). In the course of a performance review, the complaint alleges that one partner, James Morphy, told Mr. Charney that other partners had complained about his relationship and that it “need[ed] to stop.”

In other example, he refers to “documentation for circulation to all S&C partners in General Practice” circulated by another partner, Benjamin Stapleton III, that refers to Mr. Charney and this other associate as being “joined at the hip” and working “closely (too closely).”

In the complaint, he alleges that a partner, Alexandra Korry, described the relationship as “unnatural” to another co-worker.

(Mr. Morphy did not return a call for comment; Mr. Stapleton and Ms. Korry referred The Observer to Mr. Rogers.)

Mr. Charney describes in the complaint meeting with a partner to lodge a formal complaint of sexual-orientation discrimination, a fact corroborated by the Sullivan & Cromwell statement.

“The Firm promptly investigated his assertions at that time, and rejected Mr. Charney’s money demand,” wrote Mr. Cohen.

And yet he stayed at Sullivan & Cromwell, a fact that clearly had his employers confused.

“Mr. Charney chose to remain associated with the Firm thereafter.”

Mr. Charney’s complaint alleges that partner Stephen Kotran admitted that it had not been a “real investigation.”

(Mr. Kotran did not return a call for comment.) He says one partner, Ms. Korry, e-mailed the partner with whom he had lodged his complaint to call him “a liar.” He says he was excluded from a firm mentorship program and that an administrator admitted that the partner in charge was “sending a message.” He asserts that Mr. Rogers and Mr. Morphy fabricated a work evaluation of Mr. Charney, saying it was from Mr. Kotran. The report said that Mr. Charney and this other associate insisted on being staffed together, and that this closeness “could be grounds to ‘drive them out of the firm.’” Mr. Kotran disavowed the report.

By the end of the day, the link to Mr. Charney’s complaint on infirmation.com had been taken down, and in place of his morning posting, this comment: “The post that began this thread has been deleted, consistent with our policy against naming specific firm employees in a manner that may be harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable, etc., etc.”

In the documents filed this morning, Charney claims that a partner in the firm tossed a document at Mr. Charney's feet, and said, "Bend over and pick it up—I'm sure you like that."

The complaint also alleges discrimination against Canadians.

An assistant to firm chairman H. Rodgin Cohen said he was in a meeting and could not immediately respond.

The complaint is available here for download--PDF, 3.8 MB.
—Anna Schneider-Mayerson