What a clusterfuck.

(And I can’t believe I just learned about this today.)

It begins with a lawsuit and leads to the resignation of the newly-elected president of LeGal (The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Law Association of Greater New York).

Last month, Aaron Charney, a young gay lawyer at the prestigious New York City law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, sued the firm for alleged harrasment based on his sexual orientation. (Here’s the original complaint.) Among other things, he claims that one of the firm’s partners tossed a document at his feet and said, “Bend over and pick it up — I’m sure you like that.” The day after that incident, the same partner handed him another document and said, “I just took a shit while reading this, and some might still be on there for you.”

When Charney complained to the appropriate people, he allegedly experienced retaliation. According to a New York Times article last month, “Members of the firm suggested that he move to a foreign office and then fabricated reviews to accuse him of overbilling clients, among other things.”

Mr. Charney, who joined the firm in the fall of 2003 after graduating from Columbia University Law School, contends that hostility toward him because of his sexual orientation began in the fall of 2005.

In his complaint, Mr. Charney claims that a partner in the mergers practice, Eric M. Krautheimer, began to make lewd sexual remarks to him based on his sexual orientation.

The next month, he said, James C. Morphy, the managing partner of the merger group, gave Mr. Charney his semiannual review, in which he conveyed outstanding work evaluations that had been written by several partners and clients on Mr. Charney’s behalf.

At the conclusion of the evaluation, however, Mr. Charney asserts that Mr. Morphy said that several partners had complained about seeing Mr. Charney and another male associate in the group “walking the halls together” and “eating lunch together” and that this “needs to stop.” In his complaint, Mr. Charney said it was a thinly veiled and false accusation that the two were engaged in a gay relationship.

In May 2006, Mr. Charney lodged a formal complaint with David B. Harms, a co-managing partner of the firm’s general practice. A few days later, Mr. Harms said that Mr. Krauthemier and another partner whom Mr. Charney asserted had made inappropriate remarks denied doing so.

Mr. Harms assured Mr. Charney that making the complaint would not result in any change to his employment status at the firm.

But a few hours later, Mr. Charney said he learned he was not included on a mentoring list for the 2006 summer associate program.

Okay. So that’s where it begins.

The next part of the story is that an ABC News article appears in which John Scheich, the First Vice President of the LeGal, says the following:

“Sullivan Cromwell is far from prejudiced in any way,” says [Scheich], adding that the firm often buys a table at his group’s annual fundraising dinner dance. “I don’t know Aaron Charney or the details of his case, but if I had to line up on one side or the other, I would have to line up with David H. Braff [an openly gay partner at the firm] and Sullivan Cromwell.”

It gets worse.

First of all, it was irresponsible of Scheich to make such a comment to the press when he had no firsthand knowledge of the facts of the case. This is particularly true when LeGal’s mission statement includes, in part, “[p]romoting the expertise and advancement of LGBT legal professionals,” “[e]liminating homophobia and transphobia in the justice system,” “[e]ncouraging lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and people of transgendered experience to choose law as a career, and “[p]romoting solidarity among LGBT in the law.” Belittling a lawsuit alleging anti-gay discrimination seems like something that runs counter to LeGal’s mission.

But Scheich dug a deeper hole for himself. Several people e-mailed Scheich in response to his comments, criticizing him for his statements. And he responded by e-mail. Here’s one of his responses:

Who are we to believe? Mr. Charney who has never shown any interest in the gay legal community before this incident (he is not a member of LeGaL) or contributed to any of our programs as far as we know, OR Dave Braff, a member of LeGaL for over 20 years, also gay, and a big contributor to LeGaL in more ways than just money and buying a table at our annual dinner/dance.

We would welcome you into membership at LeGaL and any contributions both financial and otherwise you might choose to make. Shall I have our Administrator send you a membership application?

That whole response is just wrongheaded. (These law students agree. And that last part is just tacky.

Here’s an excerpt from another response he e-mailed to someone:

Let me explain the dilemma LeGaL finds itself.

We are constantly struggling at LeGaL to become better known and more respected in the Legal community, amongst the Judiciary, and City Council etc. Accordingly it is imperative that when the media seeks us out, it is important that we make comment, as we did in the Court of Appeals decision recently on gay marriage. People see we are part of the respected legal community just by speaking out…

So I had to comment. Of course, I could have said a very uninteresting thing like , let’s wait and see how the facts turn out. Or it’s too early to know what actually happened. Those comments probably would bot [sic] have been printed.

So I tippy toed through the issue as gingerly as I could, but made it interesting enough and accurate enough to reach print.

So he could have said, “let’s wait and see how the facts turn out,” but it didn’t seem interesting enough, so instead he decided to publicly prejudge the case in a way that makes it seem like if you buy tables at LeGal events, you’ll be insulated from criticism.

Scheich was recently elected the president of LeGal. But LeGal’s board of directors disavowed his comments:

Given the gravity of the allegations and the early stage of legal proceedings, we sincerely regret that an officer of our organization has been quoted as essentially prejudging the merits of the lawsuit and the veracity of Mr. Charney, and that the officer also made subsequent comments. That was wrong – plain and simple…

We are deeply sorry that an officer of our organization, which aims in part to eliminate discrimination and to encourage LGBT individuals to choose law as a career, made public comments dismissive of Mr. Charney’s claims. The views expressed by that officer do not represent the views of our Board, nor, we suspect, the views of our members…

In light of all this, Scheich resigned from the presidency last week.

Oh, and that’s not all. Apparently, Sullivan & Cromwell has filed a countersuit against Charney, alleging that he leaked confidential documents to the press.

This is getting uglier.