Kamala Harris's husband Doug Emhoff was known as a 'misogynist' who 'retaliated against women who didn't flirt back' at his LA law firm, ex staff claim

Kamala Harris's husband was 'inappropriate' and 'misogynistic' at work, his former colleagues tell DailyMail.com.

Attorneys who worked with Doug Emhoff at his former firm Venable say he yelled expletives, held a men-only cocktail hour in the office, revoked work perks from women who didn't flirt with him, and took only young, attractive associates in a limousine to a ball.

A 2019 lawsuit also claimed sex discrimination by other partners in the LA office Emhoff ran, and that while engaged to Harris, he hired an 'unqualified' part-time model as a legal secretary 'because she was young, attractive and friendly with the powerful men in the office'.

The claims are the latest in a string of allegations revealed by DailyMail.com that threaten to shatter Emhoff's image, heavily promoted by the Harris presidential campaign, of a feminist ally and 'wife guy'.

In August DailyMail.com revealed the Los Angeles lawyer cheated on his first wife and got his daughter's grade school teacher-cum-nanny pregnant. 

Emhoff admitted to the affair after the story broke.

And last week we uncovered claims that he struck his ex-girlfriend in 2012.

Four days after DailyMail.com contacted Emhoff for comment, a spokesperson reportedly denied the allegations as 'untrue' in a statement to politics website Semafor.

Neither he nor the White House have commented to any other media, including DailyMail.com. 

Now his former colleagues from the Venable Los Angeles office, which he ran from 2006 to 2017, are coming forward with allegations about his 'inappropriate' and 'a**hole' behavior in the workplace.

They all spoke upon agreement they would not be named, fearing retaliation.

One senior former staffer claimed Emhoff 'bragged' about yelling 'get the f*** out of my office' to a female partner at the firm, later telling his top male colleagues that he had 'put her in her place'.

'She had to ask him something,' the ex-staffer said. 'His office door was closed. She said to his secretary, 'is he on the phone?' She said no. She tapped on the door, he didn't answer, so she slightly opened the door and stuck her head in.

'He said "get the f*** out of my office."

'What's worse was he bragged about it to the management at Venable and they were aghast. He's an a**hole. He told them how he "put her in her place". A misogynist, that's who does that.'

A female ex-staffer said it was well-known at the firm that Emhoff was 'very flirty' and that 'if you weren't flirty back or didn't respond positively then you were on his s**t list.'

This former Venable lawyer accused him of 'favoritism', saying the consequences of not flirting with him were that 'you wouldn't get to work on the cases you wanted to work on.'

'There were deadlines that, if you were one of his favorite people, wouldn't apply. But if you weren't, they would,' she told DailyMail.com.

Another woman who worked at the firm for several years said that Emhoff ran men-only drinks nights in the office.

'He had, for many years cocktail parties where only men were invited. In the office, on Friday evening,' she said.

'When my colleague brought that to the attention of Venable [around 2010], that stopped.'

The female attorney claimed that Emhoff also forced his colleagues to give him a cut of fees from new clients, using his control over allocating staff to new cases.

'If you bring in a client, you get compensated,' she said.

'He was in charge of the litigation department, so he staffed your cases. So if you wanted to staff your case, you had to give him part of your origination [bonus], or you didn't get staffed. It happens in law firms all the time.'

A woman who worked under Emhoff as a junior attorney at Venable told DailyMail.com that he favored 'young, pretty girls' at the firm.

'If there was an event, like the Justice Ball, he would favor certain people. Usually it was young, pretty girls. And he would prefer for them to ride with him. He would get a limo,' she said.

'I just don't think his behavior was appropriate for the position he was in.'

One top former Venable staffer told DailyMail.com that 'plenty of people' were aware of Emhoff's alleged inappropriate behavior at the firm.

A former legal secretary at Venable, Marjan Rabbi, sued the firm and two of its LA partners in 2019 alleging sex discrimination. 

She claimed Venable senior attorneys yelled at her, humiliated and demeaned her. 

Emhoff was not a defendant in the lawsuit, but he was called out by name in Rabbi's legal complaint.

The LA court filing claimed Emhoff was known for having a glamorous secretary in her 20s who was 'unqualified' but 'hired because she was young, attractive and friendly with the powerful men in the office.'

Emhoff was the 'Partner-in-Charge' of the LA office when Rabbi joined in 2014. 

He married then-California Attorney General Harris in August that year. He was promoted to West Coast Managing Director in 2015.

'As early as October of 2014, Ms. Rabbi was told by [lawsuit defendant, Venable partner Alex] Weingarten, who yelled at her, that she was "useless to him" and like a "child",' Rabbi's August 2019 complaint said.

'Finally, he drove her from his desk after deciding that he deserved a young, attractive secretary like his partner Douglas Emhoff had. Her name, Katya, was office code. "Katya" refers to an assistant hired by Douglas Emhoff who was widely considered unqualified and hired because she was young, attractive and friendly with the powerful men in the office,' Rabbi's lawsuit said.

The legal filing added that in September 2017, Weingarten walked in on a meeting involving Rabbi, and said 'without prompting' that 'Ms. Rabbi should be assigned to do filings and work with Jeff Logan and Eric Bakewell so that he could 'have [him] self a Katya.'

'This was not the first or last time Weingarten referred to 'Katya' as a euphemism for a trophy secretary,' Rabbi's lawsuit said. 

'Ms. Rabbi heard him comment at one time that every partner should have a "Katya".'

Rabbi was referring to Katya Calderone, 36, who began working at the firm in 2014.

Calderone worked part-time as a model, including for 'bikes and babes' fashion brand Manco, and has been pictured partying at the Playboy Mansion, in GQ Magazine at Coachella Festival, socializing with Hollywood actors, and trying out for Bravo reality TV show Millionaire Matchmaker. 

Her LinkedIn says she was a legal administrative assistant at Venable from May 2014 to October 2017, and a 'Legal Practice Specialist' at DLA Piper's Century City, Los Angeles office thereafter – the law firm Emhoff also moved to in 2017.

The LinkedIn page says she 'is supporting partners Stuart Liner and Douglas Emhoff,' at DLA.

Despite Rabbi's claim that Calderone was 'unqualified', the former model lists a 2010 paralegal certificate from UCLA on her LinkedIn, and had three other legal assistant roles beginning in 2008 before joining Venable.

Venable's employment contract meant the company was able to force Rabbi to move her case to an out-of-court arbitration – a controversial practice which prevents some sex discrimination and misconduct claims being aired in open court.

The lawsuit appears to have been settled, and was dismissed in November 2021 at Rabbi's request.

Some former staffers told DailyMail.com they had positive experiences with Emhoff.

One female ex-senior staffer said she found him 'supportive', and that he 'had a genuine interest in the firm and the younger folks in the firm'.

And a male former top partner at Venable said Emhoff was 'respected and liked'.

Emhoff, who specialized in entertainment law among other areas, joined Venable in 2006, founding the national law firm's LA office with 20 attorneys by merging his company Whitwell Jacoby Emhoff with another local shop Gorry Meyer & Rudd.

Emhoff was quickly promoted to 'Partner-in-Charge' of the LA office in 2007. He was named Managing Director, West Coast in August 2015, overseeing the firm's then-team of 70 in LA as well as their San Francisco office. 

He left and joined DLA Piper in 2017, taking a leave of absence in 2020 when Kamala Harris joined Joe Biden's presidential ticket.

While at Venable, Emhoff represented a nightclub owner accused of sexual harassment and sexual battery, an international arms dealer, and pharmaceutical giant Merck in a lawsuit over its controversial osteoporosis drug Fosamax.

The nightclub owner was accused in the lawsuit of spraying an employee's hair and body 'with a foreign substance' that he removed with 'his mouth, lips and tongue.' The case was settled out of court.

In 2011, Emhoff represented international arms dealer Dolarian Capital in a case against another weapons broker, who was accused of lying about securing an export license to ship thousands of AK-47s from Romania to the Afghan national army, according to the New York Times.

In 2019, Ara Dolarian, the owner and president of Dolarian Capital, was arrested by the FBI and charged with illegally brokering the sale of millions of dollars of military-grade arms from Eastern Europe to Nigeria without permission from the State Department.

Dolarian pleaded guilty that year and was sentenced in 2023 to 14 months in prison.

Emhoff was also part of the team defending pharmaceutical giant Merck in 2013, according to the New York Times, when it was sued over an osteoporosis drug, Fosamax, that 1,200 plaintiffs alleged caused their jaw bones to deteriorate.

Merck did $3billion in sales of Fosamax in 2007 alone. The company settled with the claimants in 2013 for $27.7million.

Neither Emhoff nor his representatives responded to DailyMail.com's request for comment.