Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Job Applicant

A firm of Solicitors

Representatives

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 77 of the Employment Equality Act, 1998

CA-00025191-001

22/01/2019

The complainant has a 2:1 Law degree from University College Cork, which she obtained in 2009. She went on to complete her LL.M. from the same university in 2010. In 2015 she completed all of her FE1 exams. The complainant has experience working in Legal Offices.

In or around 2018 she saw an advertisement on the respondent’s website. The position was for a trainee solicitor. She applied for the position but was not called for an interview. The complainant states the reason she was not called for interview was discriminatory.

The complainant strongly believes that if she was a male, with the qualifications that she has, she would have been given the job. The profession is a male-dominated one and males throughout the Country are preferred over females. The complainant states that she was discriminated on grounds of gender, age and civil status by every firm in Ireland that she applied for a job in.

The complainant believes that she was treated less favourably than a married woman with children. She is of the belief that a married woman with children would get more respect and that the respondent would have an obligation to give such a candidate the job, so that she could feed her children.

The complainant is also of the belief that because she is older, the respondents favoured the younger applicants. Their website states that they can help with the transition from student to trainee solicitor. However, the complainant admitted that she does not know who the respondent hired, their gender, civil status or age. The complainant admitted that she has come to her conclusions based on a general assumption of how the legal profession operates in this Country and from general information she gathered from the respondent’s website and LinkedIn profiles.

The complainant did not request any specific information from the respondent in relation to the application process or in relation to those candidates that were successful. The complainant did not know that she could do that and was hopeful that the respondent would give her the information during the hearing.

In her Complaint Form, the Complainant claims that she was discriminated against by the Respondent on the grounds of her gender, civil status and age in relation to her application for a trainee solicitor position with the Respondent.

The Complainant has brought a complaint seeking adjudication by the WRC under section 77 of the Employment Equality Act 1998.

Summary of Respondent's Response

The Respondent denies it has discriminated against the Complainant.

The Respondent submits that the Complainant has manifestly failed to discharge the burden of proof in respect of her claim of discrimination. The Complainant's claim should therefore be dismissed on this basis alone.

Without prejudice to the forgoing submission, if the Adjudication Officer decides the burden of proof has passed to the Respondent, which is denied, the Respondent vigorously denies that any discrimination, either direct or indirect, occurred.

The Complainant has failed to identify a comparator of a different gender, civil status and/or age who was, or would have been, treated more favourably than her in respect of her application for employment with the Respondent, or to show that she suffered any less favourable treatment than an identified comparator.

The Complainant was not selected for interview for the Respondent's 2018 Trainee Solicitor Programme on the basis that other candidates demonstrated stronger capability in their application forms across all of the Respondent's selection criteria. While the Complainant is evidently aggrieved that she was not called to interview, she has adduced no evidence whatsoever that this decision was made other than on the basis of an objective assessment of her application form and scoring of same by reference to the Respondent's published selection criteria. Her disappointment at not being called to interview, while understandable, does not provide grounds for her to challenge the Respondent's decision under the Employment Equality Acts.

As the respondent is a law firm and the complainant has brought the same claim against multiple law firms in this jurisdiction, I find that it would be inappropriate to name the parties in the decision.

The probative burden of proof that rests on the complainant is set out in Melbury Developments Limited v Arturs Valpeters IEDA09171:

"...Complainant must first establish facts from which discrimination may be inferred. What those facts are will vary from case to case and there is no closed category of facts which can be relied upon. All that is required is that they be of sufficient significance to raise a presumption of discrimination. However, they must be established as facts on credible evidence. Mere speculation or assertions, unsupported by evidence, cannot be elevated to a factual basis upon which an inference of discrimination can be drawn. Section 85 (4) places the burden of establishing the primary facts fairly and squarely on the Complainant and the language of this provision admits of no exceptions to that evidential rule. "

The complainant herein, on her own admission, has based her entire claim on nothing more than her own assumptions. She has no evidence, documentary or otherwise to support her allegations. Assumptions, unsupported by facts, can never form the foundations for a discrimination claim.

I am satisfied that the complainant has failed to establish a Prima Facia case of discrimination against the respondent on any of the grounds set out in her claim form.

The complaint fails.

The complaint fails.