the child should be enrolled is in session until the end of the school term, quarter or semester of the school year in which the child becomes 18 years of age.
"(b) Upon the child's request of the school board and with the written approval of the child's parent or guardian, any child who is 16 years of age or over may attend, in lieu of high school or on a part-time basis, a vocational, technical and adult education school. Where such a request is made and approved by the school board, the district board of the vocational, technical and adult education district in which the child resides must admit the child and must enter into the contract specified in sub. (2). Every district board must offer day class                   Page 2


                                          O R D E R

       In this consolidated appeal, Tammi Bowden and Nancy Gagen challenge the grants
of summary judgment on their respective actions claiming, among other things, that their
former employer, the law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP, intercepted and monitored their
personal phone calls in violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 42 U.S.C.
§§ 2510‐2522. We affirm the district court’s judgments.

        This appeal arises from lawsuits that Bowden and Gagen both filed against Kirkland,
asserting various employment discrimination claims. Bowden is an African‐American
woman who worked as a legal secretary at the firm between 1996 and 2007. She believes
that she received unfavorable work assignments, fewer opportunities, and greater scrutiny
from her supervisors because of her race; she subsequently claimed racial discrimination
and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e‐2,
2000e‐3, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Gagen is a white woman who worked as a document
specialist at the firm from 2002 until 2006, when she was fired for disclosing confidential
information about firm personnel issues to an individual at another law firm. She claimed
that her discharge was in fact retaliation for her supporting Bowden in her discrimination
claims. 

        After almost a year of discovery, Bowden and Gagen amended their complaints to
allege that the firm intercepted and eavesdropped on hundreds of phone calls made from
Bowden’s personal cellphone and Gagen’s landline, in violation of the Electronic
Communications and Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2510‐2522, and the Illinois Eavesdropping
Act, 720 ILCS 5/14‐2. The two women based their claims primarily on discrepancies that
they identified in call records for their personal phones. Bowden, for instance, testified that
her cellphone bills did not include calls that she remembers making on her cellphone while
she was at work; but records of these same calls, she urges, suspiciously appeared on logs
for her desk phone at Kirkland. 

       In the discovery that ensued, Bowden and Gagen found further anomalies that, they
believed, reflected Kirkland’s deliberate wrongdoing. For example, there were additional
inconsistencies in the women’s telephone billing records, which, their expert witnesses
suggested, reflected the possibility that a firm with the right equipment and expertise could
have intercepted and rerouted their calls. Bowden and Gagen also introduced evidence that
in 2007 Kirkland destroyed a computer server, which, they believe, contained records of
phone calls from 2005 and 2006 that would help them prove their claim of interception. But
Kirkland’s representatives–its general counsel, its telecommunications department
Nos. 10‐3290 & 10‐3304                                    