Marsha Kazarosian

Haverhill

Born: March 24, 1956, Haverhill

Education: Suffolk University Law School, 1982; University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 1978

Massachusetts bar admission: 1982 (New Hampshire, 1990)

Legal experience: Kazarosian Law Offices (1982-present).

Bar affiliations: Haverhill, Essex County, Massachusetts and New Hampshire bar associations; Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys.

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When Marsha Kazarosian was 10 years old, she asked her uncle if she could tag along to the local country club one weekend so that she could learn to play golf. When he told her women weren't allowed on the course Sundays, Kazarosian let the matter go, figuring "it was the law," she recalls.

Today, the second-generation Haverhill lawyer is not so understanding.

In October, a Suffolk Superior Court jury found that the Haverhill Golf and Country Club routinely discriminated against nine women members in denying them coveted memberships and choice tee times, awarding Kazarosian's clients $1.97 million in damages. With interest and attorneys' fees, the award totals more than $3 million. The club has said it will appeal the verdict.

The month-long trial came on the heels of a five-year battle the female golfers had waged against the country club, which they claimed unfairly kept them from obtaining "primary memberships" because of their gender.

Until 1989, primary memberships were restricted to men only. In 1992, following the filing of a prior MCAD complaint by several women members, the club officially opened primary memberships to women, but continued to give nearly all female golfers only "limited memberships," which provided restricted access to the golf course, particularly on weekends.

The Attorney General's Office is now seeking a permanent injunction to ensure the club complies with the state's anti-discrimination laws. It has also requested the appointment of a court monitor -- to be paid for by the defendant to oversee the club's compliance with the court order.

Kazarosian says the case involved more than just prime tee times and premier memberships.

"It wasn't just that [my clients] were inconvenienced," she states. "It was much more than inconvenience. That's like saying you're inconveniencing someone by making them sit in a certain area of the bus, or you're inconveniencing someone by saying you can't rent this apartment, but we'll rent you that one across the street. You still get an apartment; you still get a ride on the bus. It's not inconvenience it's discrimination."

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Q. Two years ago, a Boston attorney successfully sued a women-only health club that had denied him admission. The Legislature immediately responded by amending the state law to allow health clubs to be female only. How is your case different from that case?

A. In some ways it really isn't, as far as the basic issue of if you're a [place of] public accommodation, you can't be selective or discriminate because of gender or anything else. ... So I think the underlying issue is the same. The country club and that health club are [places of] public accommodation. I remember thinking I don't know how they can justify kicking this guy out because he's male. But they got around that by changing the statute.

Q.Has society developed a double standard? Is it okay for groups to discriminate blatantly against men but if anyone shows even a little discriminatory conduct toward women, they get hit with multi-million-dollar liability?

A. I don't think there's a double standard as far as letting men be discriminated against without reaction, and reacting to women who are discriminated against. I don't believe that to be true at all. I think there's a double standard where people will react to certain discrimination in one way, and are slow to react to other discrimination such as gender discrimination. You have some egregious examples of discrimination over the years whether it's race or religion or whatever and then you put this case up in the face of what the defense was saying, which was basically it's just some women who don't want to pay the money and minimizing their issues. Discrimination is discrimination. I don't think you can minimize it. If it's happening, it's egregious. You can't be a little pregnant. You can't discriminate a little bit.

Q. The award in this case -- nearly $2 million -- might seem to many people like an awful lot of money for plaintiffs who were inconvenienced in terms of their tee times. Do you think when the Civil Rights Act was being debated back in 1964 that this was the kind of injustice lawmakers were trying to remedy?

A. I don't know. I think what lawmakers were trying to remedy, and what the big issue at that time was, was race relations and racial discrimination. You didn't even think twice about discriminating against women because that was what happened from the dawn of time. You would never think twice about hearing that a woman was prohibited from going on a golf course on a Sunday morning. ... And it wasn't just that [my clients] were inconvenienced. It was much more than inconvenience.

Q. The defense attorney told reporters after the verdict that the plaintiffs had parlayed complaints about escalating membership costs into claims of gender discrimination. Do the discrimination laws in Massachusetts make it too easy for plaintiffs to manufacture a claim of discrimination whenever they've been subjected to an adverse decision they don't like?

A. Absolutely not. This [was] a four-and-a-half-year fight. I think it's very easy for a defendant who is a corporation, or a deeper pocket with a big Boston law firm, to run roughshod over a plaintiff who has a legitimate claim that is what is very simple to do. And someone who can use the media or is good at putting spin on issues can make it extremely difficult. That's why, I think, this is the only case so far in the country that has ever gone to trial. In all the cases I've looked at so far -- both in Massachusetts and across the country -- the women who are plaintiffs have been so bullied and shunned and heckled and harassed, and basically beaten up, that they give up. They go back licking their wounds and then the people in their own club shun them. We were very lucky. We had a number of people that stuck together, and have been together for four-and-a-half years united in this issue. I think that's what saved them from being totally run over by the defendants, which they tried to do. They tried to run me over. They buried me with paperwork, they refused to communicate. Believe me, it was not an easy thing to pursue.

Q. You first filed this suit with the MCAD in 1995. Why didn't this case settle?

A. After dealing with [the defendants] since 1995, my own opinion is that they have a difficult time accepting responsibility for what they do. They also don't like a woman suggesting that they're wrong. This is a small community, and there are certain people who are pretty well-known and feel like this is a personal issue that they're not going to back down on. In order to get their reputations back they have to see it to the end. Right from the beginning we wanted to settle this, basically for no money, just saying, "Look, you've got to stand by your promise to the limited members. Don't keep changing the rules for them. Don't charge double initiation fees. Don't raise hoops they have to jump over that no one else has to jump over. Just keep the same rules for everybody." We fought so hard to settle this over and over again. The biggest stumbling block was that the club was requiring the women to sign a public statement that no discrimination had occurred at the country club. In the last year-and-a-half they compromised [by saying], "Okay, we want the statement from you to say that no discrimination has occurred at the country club since 1990." You can't do that. That's like trying your case and winning it without having to go through a trial. And it's perjury. We couldn't sign a statement like that. The highest offer we ever got, even during the first week of trial, was $75,000 plus the statement. That was totally unacceptable. Finally, the night before closing arguments, we were leaving the courthouse, going down the elevator, and the insurance man says to me, "Well, we're willing to come up on the offer." I said, "Unless you're going to get a nose bleed ...!" The highest we got at that point was $250,000. We had gone through four weeks of trial. I talked to my clients and they said, "You know what, if we get nothing, that's better because it's not the money we care about. Let the jury make a decision because we need to be vindicated."

Q. The club here is a private country club. Suppose the club had admitted they had discriminated but asserted that they had the right to discriminate. Why shouldn't private clubs like this one be able to make whatever rules they want to make? What business is it of the government budding into the decision-making process of a private club like this?

A. This club is a private club only in one aspect, and I think this is what compelled the jury to find that it is subject to the discrimination law. ... The stand you have to use when you're trying to determine whether a private club should be subject to these laws is how selective is their membership process; do they rent their facilities out to the public; and do they have a liquor license that they use to get outside money from the public. In the 50 years that we could track the membership selectivity process, the testimony showed that nobody had ever been rejected for membership. So selectivity wasn't an issue. Are they open to the public? Absolutely. I'm not a member there, but if I want to have a wedding there or a business luncheon, I can just go in and rent the facility. They advertise on the Web to everybody in the world who can get into the Web site. So I think these are the things that subjected them to the law. If you have a club that is truly private that, for example, has a very selective membership process, that does not rent the facilities out to anyone in the public, and that in order to have a function by a non-member they have to go through a member -- that's a whole different thing. Do I agree with that concept? No. But will that insulate them at this point in time against liability under the discrimination statute? Probably. But Haverhill [Country Club] was not private to that extent.

Q. Suppose a bunch of women decided they wanted to start their own "women-only" golf club because they found the bonds of sisterhood to be fulfilling and they felt intimidated golfing on the same course as highly competitive men. Should these women be allowed to start such a club?

A. The way the laws are now, women could start such a club and men could start such a club as long as they keep within the parameters. There are still clubs in Haverhill not necessarily golf where just men get together. They're not doing anything illegal. If that's the way they want to have a club, they have a right to do it. But they have to follow the correct parameters and not deviate from them.

Q. A lot of attorneys would consider a verdict like this to be a "career maker." Is that the case for you, or do you see this as just another case that happened to result in a larger than average recovery?

A. I've been pretty proud of my career up to this point! It's a larger recovery than I've ever seen personally in any case I've done, but it was the most difficult and risky case that I've done as well. It took a lot of years of time investment without money.

Q. You're a small-firm practitioner practicing outside of Boston who came up against a well-heeled Boston firm in the golf club case, and probably in many other cases as well. Do you feel at a disadvantage when this happens, or is it perhaps an advantage because the other side may underestimate you?

A. Your first reaction is always to feel at a disadvantage. I always want to have that first reaction because then I work harder. I would rather overestimate someone than underestimate. [But] I feel very confident in my ability as a lawyer and a trial lawyer that I know once I'm out there in the arena, that's not what I have to worry about. The most important thing I need to worry about is have I prepared everything properly; am I ready to go up against this big huge firm on the same level that I perceive them to be at. So far I've done all right. And I think part of it is, they look at this office and say "Haverhill? One lawyer? Who is she?" Maybe they do underestimate me to a point as they would any smaller firm. And I hope they keep doing it.

Q. Is it harder, as a small-firm lawyer, being a woman or do men face equally difficult challenges?

A. Any small-firm practitioner is going to experience the same difficult challenges across the board: getting business in; getting your name out there; doing quality work; making sure that you're docket is organized, etc. That's all difficult. Whether you're a man or a woman, you're going to face that. But I think a woman has a little harder task because in the law it's still somewhat of a male environment. The Merrimack Valley area, where my office is, is still predominantly male-oriented in the realm of trial lawyers. It's been particularly difficult in this case since the Haverhill bar, which is also predominantly male with respect to trial lawyers, [has been] very split on the Haverhill Country Club [lawsuit]. Although I've had a great deal of support from many Haverhill lawyers, I've also experienced difficulties as well. For example, the Haverhill Bar Association scheduled its last meeting at the Haverhill Country Club, which put me in a very awkward position.

[Also,] I'm on the executive committee of the board of governors of the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys. I'm an Essex County delegate for the Massachusetts Bar Association. I'm the treasurer of the Essex County Bar Association and will be president after the next term. Despite all of those achievements of which¸ I am very proud I still feel that there are times when I have to work harder to prove myself because I'm female. But those times, thankfully, are becoming fewer and farther between.

Q. You had some notoriety before as one of the defense attorneys in the case against Pamela Smart. How do you evaluate the job the media does covering legal issues, both criminal and civil?

A. It's up to the lawyer to determine what case is appropriate for the media to be involved in and what case isn't. When I did the Pamela Smart case, we made a decision to stay clear of the media as much as we could. That was our responsibility. I think the media covered it very well, just as they're covering the country club case very well. But how a lawyer interacts with the media based on the issues of the case that's the driving force. I don't think anyone can blame the media for anything without taking some responsibility themselves.

We looked at this discrimination case almost like child abuse. If the public doesn't know about it, and if it keeps getting dealt with as if it's an in-house issue, that's dangerous. So we made a decision that we would be more open and inviting to the media, because it was clear that the club was not going to admit what they were doing. They weren't going to educate their members; they weren't going to educate the community. So in order to get this thing the attention it needed, we decided after the first six months that we were going to cooperate on a different level with the media. It's not an easy decision to make. I think you have to take it on a case-by-case basis. But this is a case that the people need to know about, the people need to hear about. The media plays an incredibly important role in that.

Q. As a second-generation lawyer, do you hope your own children follow in your footsteps and go into the practice of law?