Former JLL Retail Head Cites ‘Boys Club Mentality,’ Discrimination In Lawsuit Counterclaim

JLL’s former Philadelphia retail head is accusing her onetime employer of fostering a “boys club” working environment by subjecting her to gender discrimination, allowing other brokers specializing in outside asset classes to “invade” her space and deliberately excluding her from meetings held by the otherwise all-male team of regional managing directors.

Paige Jaffe, who left JLL in August to found Square Retail Consultants with former JLL Senior Vice President Mallory Scacetti, made the claims in response to a lawsuit filed by the Chicago-based brokerage. JLL sued the pair, alleging breach of contract and stealing trade secrets, following their departure.

Jaffe and Scacetti joined JLL from CBRE to launch JLL’s Philly-area retail leasing team in 2019, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal.

“From the outset of Jaffe’s employment, JLL repeatedly discriminated and retaliated against her, breached its implied duties to act in good faith, and materially failed to fulfill the promises upon which Jaffe had relied in signing her employment agreements,” the counterclaim says.

JLL denied the accusations in a written statement provided to Bisnow.

“We plan to defend those claims vigorously while we continue to pursue repayment of the amounts we are owed and the return of our confidential and proprietary information,” a JLL spokesperson said in an email.

The counterclaim, in Jaffe’s name only and filed Dec. 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Philadelphia, says JLL’s Philadelphia branch had “a ‘boys club’ mentality,” with both women suffering “constant gender directed comments from other brokers.” That included remarks about their appearances, “their wardrobes and how they fit their bodies,” Scaccetti’s ability to return to work after three pregnancies and whether they or their husbands were the “real ‘bread winners,’” according to the suit. 

Complaints to Executive Managing Director Michael Morrone went unheeded, the suit claims, and JLL’s human resources department declined to take action. In at least one case, HR personnel reportedly advised the women to ignore what they allegedly acknowledged to be inappropriate remarks.

Jaffe also alleged JLL impeded her ability to perform her role by repeatedly allowing other brokers to infringe on retail turf, contrary to longstanding JLL rules and practices, and doing so “without her consent and without arranging for fee sharing.”

Complaints to both local and national management fell on deaf ears, according to the claim, causing Jaffe to lose out on commissions of more than $900K “based only on the invasions she knows about now without taking discovery from JLL.”

Jaffe also claimed she was excluded from meetings held by the nine other Philadelphia managing directors, all men, and denied opportunities given to male peers to meet with developers, landlords and others. Exclusion from the meetings could have prevented her from earning commissions to pay off a $650K promissory note that was billed as a signing bonus, according to the countersuit. Jaffe was to have paid it off by handing over to JLL 6% of the cash collected and attributed to her from 2019 through 2026.

“When Jaffe asked to sit in on some capital markets meetings, a male colleague told her she could join but should not speak and should just ‘sit there and look pretty,’” the suit says.

She is seeking damages from lost commissions and 50% of the commissions JLL receives from deals it has or will close on her behalf. She is also asking that the debt on the promissory note be forgiven.

JLL's lawsuit against Jaffe and Scacetti alleges both women owe hundreds of thousands on promissory notes in addition to downloading six confidential databases before leaving on Aug. 31 and starting their own firm. Jaffe's counterclaim maintains she took only her own data amassed over a 15-year career.

Jaffe was JLL's first Philadelphia-area retail managing director when she joined the firm. She and Scacetti were named among 20 Philadelphia real estate professionals in Bisnow’s 2022 Women Leading Real Estate cohort.

At that time, Jaffe pointed to her visibility in an industry that still operates as a “boys’ club” as proof of her own success as a woman leading real estate, adding she hoped to impart that message to her own children.