Monica Eton

Monica Eton
Portrayed by	Gina Holden
Biographical Information
Residence	New York
Occupation	Retail Merchant Corporate Lawyer (formerly)
Position	Senior Associate (formerly)
Institution	Park Avenue Boutique Pearson Hardman (formerly)
Physical Description
Gender	Female
Hair color	Brown
Eye color	Blue
Relationships
Significant Others	Daniel Hardman (affair)
Character Information
First appearance	Rewind
Latest appearance	He's Back

"Jessica was wrong to fire you, but she didn't fire you because you're a woman. She fired you because she didn't trust you." "I know that." "So then you also know that keeping this suit alive is sticking it to her." "That's the whole point." — Mike Ross and Monica Eton

Monica Eton is a former senior associate at Pearson Hardman who later sued the firm for sexual harassment and gender discrimination.

History

"The only thing you're sorry about is your little maneuver backfired."
"Yeah, but it didn't backfire on me. It backfired on Jessica."
"That's too bad. That's exactly what I'm happy about."

―Monica Eton and Mike Ross

Monica Eton worked as an associate at Pearson Hardman from 2003 to 2007. During her time there, she was described as competent, and became friends with Rachel Zane. Monica was also a target of repeated unwanted advancements from Louis Litt, who had a crush on her, although she was unconcerned of the attention.

During this period, Monica began an extramarital affair with the firm's senior partner, Daniel Hardman, which was revealed in 2007. Jessica Pearson fired Monica, as Hardman had spent vast amounts of money on her, including expensive jewelry and vacations around the world, which he had embezzled from the firm. Although there was no concrete evidence that Monica knew about the embezzlement, Jessica used the justification that a Harvard-educated lawyer would know the money was not legally Hardman's, and that Monica could not be trusted. She then worked as a merchant in a Park Avenue boutique.

Five years later, as a ploy to rid Hardman of some of the support he had at the firm, Harvey Specter told Mike Ross to approach Monica and convince her to file a sexual harassment suit against Hardman. Harvey later revealed that he had set up the meeting with Monica at Louis' usual Thursday lunch restaurant to see if Louis would inform Hardman.

Hardman then took Mike's suit, which was intended solely to relieve Hardman of some of his support, and officially filed it word-for-word as a gender discrimination suit against Jessica as well as a sexual harassment suit against Louis. Due to a confidentially agreement signed by Jessica that prohibits the firm from disclosing Hardman's actions, they are unable to disclose the true reason for her dismissal without incurring a penalty of paying $15 million to Hardman. Mike eventually gets Monica to settle, appealing to her that if she doesn't, the firm's suit against Folsom Foods, which is their own gender discrimination case, will be lost. However, the settlement leaves Pearson Hardman with very little resources for future battles.

Notes

• It is exceedingly odd that a Harvard-educated lawyer would be working as a retail merchant at a boutique, even after getting fired. However, since Jessica refused to write Monica a letter of recommendation, this possibly made her look undesirable to other law firms.