A former attorney in the Walt Disney Co.’s legal affairs department says she was laid off for complaining about disparate gender treatment in the workplace, including being paid less than a male colleague despite consistently outperforming him.
Alisa Clairet’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges violations of the state’s Equal Pay Act, disparate treatment based on sex, retaliation, failure to pay wages due to a discharged employee and violation of the state’s unfair competition law. She seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages as well as either reinstatement or front pay in lieu of rehiring.
A Disney representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit filed Aug. 15.
Clairet was hired in May 2004 and initially worked for Disney’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment. By 2005, she was working for Disney ABC Cable Networks Group and she was later hired by the then-senior vice president for legal affairs to be senior counsel.
At the same time, a similarly qualified man was hired for the same work, but was given a more senior title an higher starting salary, the suit alleges. After a couple years a new boss recognized Clairet was doing the same or more work than her male colleague and promoted her to the same position as the man, but she did not receive a pay raise appropriate for the elevation, the suit further states.
Clairet mentioned her inequality concerns to the then-head of legal affairs for all of Disney Television, who acknowledged the pay disparity and turned it over to human resources, but that department did nothing, according to the suit.
In 2016, Clairet and her only male counterpart on the legal affairs team were asked to act as temporary co-heads of the legal affairs group at Disney Channel, but the man was given and kept a pay hike the next year and a coveted corner office even after he was first promoted, then later demoted, the suit states.
Although Clairet received regular cost-of-living raises and annual bonuses, the increases did not close the gender pay gap, the suit states. Clairet allegedly had a high work output and outperformed her male colleague, working 44 projects compared to his 22 in 2020 and being involved in more than him each year up until 2024, all for less pay.
Clairet also trained others, including another principal counsel who did not have a background or legal experience in television programming development and production and she also was called up by senior management to train, supervise and assist in the career development of all subordinate attorneys, prompting a senior manager to call training Clairet’s “superpower,” the suit states.
However, last Sept. 24 the deputy chief counsel told Clairet she was being terminated as of the next month because of cost-cutting needs, according to the suit, which further states that her male colleague kept his job.
Clairet believes her layoff occurred in part because her “years of campaigning for equal pay had a made her a problem” and that none of the possible explanations for her termination are “legal or ethical.”