Wall Street Bank Settles With Analyst Fired for Demanding Eight Hours of Sleep a Night

A New York City investment bank has settled a lawsuit with a former junior analyst who was fired for saying she needed more than eight hours of sleep a night, putting to bed a case that reignited debate over Wall Street’s punishing hours. Centerview Partners reached an agreement with Kathryne Shiber over the weekend, just days before jury selection was set to begin in a lawsuit over the firm’s policies. The terms of the settlement have not been publicly disclosed. Ms. Shiber sued Centerview in 2021, claiming that she was fired just ten weeks into a three-year analyst program after informing the firm that she had mood and anxiety disorders that required her to sleep at least eight hours every night. She filed the lawsuit under state and federal disability discrimination law and sought $5 million in damages.The former analyst alleged she had raised her condition with Centerview’s human resources department after she was assigned to her first client project and worked until 2 a.m. several days in a row. She was initially permitted to log off by midnight and not return until 9 a.m., but was later told by her managers that the arrangement was no longer viable. On September 15, 2020, two weeks after she had received the accommodation, she was fired.The boutique investment bank argued in court filings that it had gone to “great lengths” to accommodate Ms. Shiber’s disability but that working unpredictable hours was an essential function of being an analyst. During Ms. Shiber’s termination, Centerview’s chief operating officer informed her that being “available 24/7” was a requirement of the job.Centerview also claimed that Ms. Shiber’s special accommodation was “unsustainable” given that it placed an unfair burden on her colleagues. “As a result of Shiber’s need to sign offline at midnight each night, Shiber’s colleagues were left picking up on workstreams that Shiber would have been responsible for completing,” the bank wrote. It noted that it had to add a new analyst to her deal, something which was “uncommon in Centerview’s lean staffing structure.”Centerview had prepared to call several executives to the stand, including co-president Tony Kim. After the settlement, the firm reiterated that Ms. Shiber’s legal claims had “no merit” and that it was “confident we would have prevailed at trial.”The settlement comes as scrutiny of Wall Street’s brutal work culture — where junior analysts at top banks often log more than 100 hours a week — has intensified. The recent deaths of several young investment bankers have ignited calls for stronger workplace protections.

Wall Street Bank Settles With Analyst Fired for Demanding Eight Hours of Sleep a Night

Wall Street Bank Settles With Analyst Fired for Demanding Eight Hours of Sleep a Night

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