Twelve-year veteran alleges her duties vanished weeks after she told her boss she was pregnant
A long-tenured recruiting director at a major international law firm says she was fired while pregnant — six weeks after telling her boss.
Sonya Wilson spent nearly twelve years climbing the ranks at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, rising from recruiting coordinator in 2014 to Director of Firmwide Associate Recruiting by 2023. Three promotions. Pay raises. Not a single negative performance review along the way. Then, according to a lawsuit filed on April 21, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, it all unraveled in a matter of weeks.
Wilson's case (Wilson v. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, No. 3:26-cv-00490) alleges that her supervisor's attitude shifted the moment she shared news of a high-risk pregnancy in late November 2025. Wilson, who says she was the only Black female director on the firm's recruiting leadership team — and, by her account, the lowest-paid director despite managing the largest team — disclosed blood pressure concerns and a genetic mutation, and asked for flexibility around medical appointments and possible family leave.
From there, the filing says, the working relationship "nosedived immediately."
Wilson claims core pieces of her job were quietly peeled away and handed to a less-experienced subordinate who was not Black and not pregnant, including oversight of on-campus interviews and associate recruiting for the New...
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