A solicitor who lost her job after 16 years with her firm was not discriminated against despite flaws in the redundancy process, a tribunal has found.
The East London employment tribunal ruled that Johanne Ward was let go from her role as clinical negligence associate partner from London and Essex firm Sternberg Reed because the work dried up. Ward, who identifies as a black British woman, brought a number of different claims following her departure from the firm in 2022, including unfair dismissal; race, sex and disability discrimination; and victimisation.
Following a seven-day hearing last summer, the tribunal, chaired by Employment Judge S Shore, dismissed all the claims except one for unauthorised deduction of £1,281 in wages, which the firm agreed to pay.
The tribunal heard that Ward had objected to the process by which she was not considered for an alternative position within the firm after the decision to close the clinical negligence department.
The ruling said: ‘We find that parts of the respondent’s process in the redundancy around the issues of who were required to attend interviews, what roles were on offer or were being interviewed for, and what was said about retraining were shambolic, but do not find that the procedure taken in the round was a sham.’
Ward had joined the firm in 2006 and worked her way up from solicitor to associate partner on a full-time equivalent salary of almost £60,000 (she worked 28 hours per week).
The firm had informed Ward and two colleagues in the clinical negligence department that their positions were at risk of redundancy. When the partners voted to stop doing clinical negligence work, the firm had 28 current files of which three were likely to generate substantial fees but none was likely to be resolved for some years. The firm’s ATE insurer had indicated it would no longer offer cover for this area of work.
Attempts to sell the clinical negligence files were described as ‘long and arduous, but ultimately unsuccessful’, and Ward was subsequently invited to a one-to-one meeting to discuss alternatives.
Solicitor roles were available in the family and private client departments – both on lesser salaries – and the tribunal found it ‘entirely reasonable’ that Ward was required to interview for the positions given her lack of knowledge and practical experience of each area of law. The firm was then entitled not to offer her a job because it would have taken too long to gain the skills and experience required.
The dismissal was found to have been ‘fair, if not flawless’. The tribunal criticised that the interviews were treated at times like an ‘informal chat’ and Ward was not sent papers in advance that might have helped her to prepare. But these errors were not sufficient to make a finding that the dismissal was unfair, and neither were they tainted by discrimination.
The tribunal also found there was no discrimination involved when a senior colleague offered to grant Ward additional paid leave at home after illness 'to allow you space to consider whether a change in legal career is something you want to pursue'. This was found to be sensible and supportive advice.
The tribunal added: ‘We empathise with the situation that the claimant found herself in during 2022, but on our findings, the respondent had no choice but to close its clinical negligence department and her redundancy was an inevitable consequence of that. We sincerely hope she can draw a line under these events.'
