Anthony Sbardellati had an epiphany as a BigLaw first-year associate. He was working on a trial team, taking depositions and writing motions. A firm rainmaker summoned him into his office regarding a brief the 26-year-old had written.
“And he says, ‘Hey, Anthony. Would you go get that piece of s- - -?’” Sbardellati recalls.
Taken aback by the comment, Sbardellati went to a nearby conference room to get a printed copy of his brief. And then it happened.
“He proceeds to berate me for 30 minutes straight about how awful my writing is, how stupid I am. And what a piece of crap this is, what a waste of his time it was to read it,” Sbardellati says.
There were other instances of abuse directed at Sbardellati—from public humiliation in meetings to misspelling his name in emails. On the day of the brief incident, two things transpired. First, Sbardellati received a valuable lesson in how to handle people in uncomfortable situations. Second, although he was gay, he was not out, and it was then he decided to live authentically.
Sbardellati says he “broke out of the closet” at that moment. “I was like, I can’t hide this anymore. I can’t deal with all this stress. I can’t juggle all this madness and continue to pretend to be somebody I’m not,” he says.
Now based in Culver City, California, Sbardellati is a Grove Law partner who handles management-side labor and employment cases.
Growing up in a religious family in Orange County, California, during the ’80s and ’90s, Sbardellati says...
Big Tech companies, including Meta, Google and Microsoft, have promised to support Nigeria’s electoral commission, INEC, to tackle false information and AI-generated manipulations during the 2027 ...