EVERSHEDS has been ordered to pay £123,300 to an associate who claimed he was dismissed unfairly and suffered sex discrimination during the firm’s redundancy programme.
This underlines the increasing management difficulties that firms are facing in the wake of the mass redundancies seen over the past two years.
John de Belin, an associate in the real estate investor team at Eversheds’ Leeds office, was laid off by the firm in February 2009 amid nationwide redundancies. He subsequently brought a claim to the Employment Tribunal saying he had been treated less favourably than an associate in his group who was on maternity leave during the firm’s consultation process.
The tribunal found in favour of de Belin and in a remedies hearing last month ordered Eversheds to pay £123,300 to him. The firm is planning to appeal.
De Belin’s complaint centred on the performance-based scoring exercise used to determine who would be at risk of redundancy.
One criterion was lock-up. Lawyers were given a score between 0.5 and 2 depending on how quickly they had secured client payment during a snapshot period.
During that period one associate had been on maternity leave. Eversheds awarded her a maximum score of two on the grounds that any other decision would have deprived her of the opportunity to show that she could have scored the maximum, leaving the firm open to a potential sexual discrimination claim from her.
The effect of the decision was to give the associate on maternity leave a total score of 27.5 out of 39, compared with de Belin’s 27. This resulted in her being kept on while he was made redundant.
The tribunal found that de Belin had been treated less favourably because of the automatic score awarded
to the female associate and rejected the firm’s interpretation of the Sexual Discrimination Act.
Eversheds is being represented by John Cavanagh QC of 11 King’s Bench Walk and has until 5 May to provide its draft grounds of appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
In a statement the firm said: “The tribunal disagreed with our decision to act to ensure an employee on maternity leave was not disadvantaged. We were surprised by the decision of the tribunal. We stand by the actions that we took and believe that the tribunal’s ruling is mistaken. We will be appealing.”
Readers' comments (27)
John | 6-May-2010 4:30 pm
I'm glad for the employee. Leaning over backwards for the female has simply swapped one injustice for another.
Women were poorly treated in the past, but that doesn't justify now treating men as second class citizens.
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Anonymous | 7-May-2010 3:22 pm
That makes three top law firms in the spate of months having bad publicity.....can ever White & Case, Clifford Chance and Eversheds now shake off this image....between the three....sure do Eversheds reputation is becoming problematic...just like DLA Piper in Dubai.
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Anonymous | 9-May-2010 1:33 am
I like John's comments
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Anonymous | 9-May-2010 12:46 pm
Eversheds has been struggling with bad publicity for a couple of years now - they seem a fav whipping boy for legal press and not without some justification. Don't they realise that in house lawyers like myself read the lawyer (sometimes anyway) if I were them I would do anything to avoid the media and let it all calm down but they seem to love being front page e.g. superbrands story.
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Anonymous | 9-May-2010 9:03 pm
I was working there at the time and there seems to be a simple fact that Eversheds' spin didn’t include.
The woman on maternity leave returned to work and (being sole bread winner of her family and with a young baby) was dismissed in the very next round of redundancies.
Well done you champions of maternity
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Also an Eversheds Redundancy Victim | 13-May-2010 9:38 pm
Well done John - i wish you all the very best for the appeal.
It was simply a bloodbath at the time and absolutely no transparency from Eversheds. The partners were more concerned with protecting themselves - it was a case of stuff the minions beneath them!
As well as well deserved bad press staff morale at the firm is rock bottom. So much for the 'great firm to work for' slogan!
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Anonymous | 19-May-2010 9:55 am
It is somewhat amusing that in trying to prevent one set of proceedings for sex discrimination from their female employee on maternity leave, Eversheds landed themselves in Tribunal on those very grounds, but brought by their male employee.
I believe that it is fundamental to have legislative safeguards in place to ensure women on maternity leave are not treated unfairly (I don't think anyone would disagree), however, that does not mean that employers should be allowed to use such safeguards to their advantage and to another employee’s detriment.
All credit to you John for taking on Eversheds - it's always a satisfying triumph when David beats Goliath!
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