Sacked for being a mum!!

[Blondebutnotlegally]

I've been working at a very small law firm for the last 2 months. Still in probation period. I've just been sacked as they think my home life will prevent me from undertaking the notoriously difficult exams.... I've been doing great at the work, as told by manager, but the main boss clearly doesn't like the baggage of me having kids (I'm the first person with children they have ever hired) and sacked me, via email, TODAY on a bloody Sunday! Told me not to even bother coming in tomorrow! Nothing I can even do about it as I was in my probation period! So upset as this was my dream career and I was so lucky to get a training contract. They didn't even pretend it was to do with my work, they just said in their experience I won't be able to complete it due to "flexibilities" I may need in the future. Just venting. Arseholes.

Most of the time when people suggest taking action over dismissals, I think they are being unreasonable.

in your case, you need to print that email, forward it to another account, actually collect every email where they have said anything suspect because they are going to scrub their servers

get this thread removed.

them write down absolutely every detail you can remember about your employment.

OP I'm an employment lawyer. Taking aside the fact that it sounds like very obvious discrimination and therefore unfair (and you don't need any period of service to establish that), I think your best bet is to contact the law society/ SRA. The reason being, in a training contract situation the Law Society is deemed the overall guardian of the employment relationship, so it's incredibly difficult in practice for a law firm to terminate any trainees employment, unless it's a striking off type offense. They will be able to weigh in and can put in a firm warning with the firm. That said, if they're like this now, your chances of actually seeing out the training contract with them are limited and would likely be quite an unpleasant 2 years with almost zero chance of retention so I would use the Law Society angle to negotiate a decent settlement.

Contact ACAS. They should be able to act as mediators in negotiating some
kind of settlement to at least tide you over for a few months while you look for a new job. I’ve successfully used ACAS twice in discrimination cases.

This! Contact the SRA. They can't just terminate your training contract that easily.

Although it sounds like you haven't yet started your training contract and were a paralegal. Is that right?

You have had very good advice about contacting SRA if you have a training contract it’s very difficult to legally end it early.

To those saying about not being able to terminate training contracts easily. I was technically a paralegal in a kind of "buffering" period to make sure I was the right fit for the firm. So it would have started in a couple of months.

No proof via email apart from the one firing me. Very small firm, everything face to face. I'll call ACAS/pregnant then screwed and see what happens.

Have you had to take any time off for child related reasons?

Not in the slightest.

They can legally get rid of you for any reason during probation sadly inflexibility is one valid reason. Especially as they have given you shorter days to accommodate you.

(Realistically they are probably right that you won't be as flexible as they need you to be ).

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. And thousands of other mums

This is interesting. I didn't know about a "training contract " thank you

I think if it's a protected characteristic you can take it to an employment tribunal and that would count as sex discrimination

I've seen law firms that have been even more stupid. But I suspect that they aren't that stupid. What they have said verbally can be denied, and as the OP says, the email looks like it could be interpreted ambiguously. It could be argued (and I am definitely not defending them) that any employee with shorter days / less flexibility would be unable to manage the training. I suspect that they know exactly what they are doing, have lined their ducks in a row, and allocated a small settlement offer to pay her off with. Despite "popular opinion", most discrimination claims are worth sheds load less than anyone thinks, take forever to get through the tribunal system, and are immensely exhausting. The median award from a tribunal is less than £18,000, and the %-age win rate for claimants is only 22%. Those are good odds that she'll give in before they do. It is rare indeed that anyone gets taken to the cleaners at employment tribunals. Headlines about such cases are headlines because they are so unusual, not because they are commonplace.

1. forward the email they sent you to another personal email account (the meta data May be helpful beyond a screen shot.
2. email a DSAR to them, you want all personal data they hold on you but in particular (but not limited to), your HR file, any emails relating to your employment and the decision to terminate it.
3. copy every email / text of every example of anything that has been send to you about your flexibility/status as a mother/children including times dates and who said it.
4. do the same for anything that has been said to you re the same
5. then same for every piece of positive feedback you’ve been provided.
6. call pregnant then screwed.

Wrong, you can't "get rid" of someone for discriminatory reasons at any stage.

Try the charity Working Families https://workingfamilies.org.uk/ they have excellent legal support for people in this sort of situation

You're going to get a nice juicy discrimination payout. Honestly, you'd think a law firm would know more about... the law

Especially as you haven't even asked for flexibility! They'd just sexistly assumed that as a female parent, you'd need them! So double whammy of sex based and parental based discrimination

If there's not suggestion of any performance issue, it's not ambiguous at all.

Tribunal all the way here.

A fucking law firm!!!

There is precedent that you can sue for discrimination over a protected characteristic even at the very beginning of your employment: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12314927/Healthcare-worker-30-came-UK-Zimbabwe-better-version-awarded-25-000-employment-tribunal-sacked-pregnant.html
(sorry I can't find a better source)

While "being a mother" isn't classed as a protected characteristic (I was categorically told by the Human Rights/Equality phone helpline while being denied medical treatment on this basis last year, and I wouldn't recommend ringing them, they were awful and the woman on the phone laughed at me while I was being refused treatment for an urgent life threatening condition), if you're in a situation that reasonably wouldn't be applied to a male, you can make a case for it being sex discrimination. How many male colleagues have children and how many of them have been pushed out because of it?
Also it's an absolute pisstake that they hired you claiming it was a training contract then never actually put you in for one.
Pregnant then Screwed are really good for advice.

I know this doesn’t help for this situation but do you have any other paralegal experience, if so have you looked into qualifying by equivalent means? Even if you haven’t it will still be worth looking into for future work and treat each job as if you are using that experience by keeping a trainee diary and retracted evidence of the work you have done. It’s by far not an easy route but if you are determined to qualify then it can be a route to be considered.

Thanks for everyone's help. It's really useful info. I came into this convinced I had no option but to suck it up. I'll keep you all updated!

Hi everyone. I forgot to update you all. On Tuesday I received a reply saying I was not fit for purpose as I was particularly slow at the job and was borderline sexually harassing one of my colleagues. This has no truth to it. I have no idea what they are on about. I have a long term boyfriend and children. I have no idea whether this was a man or woman making these allegations, or whether they are pulling shit out of thin air. Looks like they are prepared to fight dirty so I think I'll pull out.

How long were you with them before you asked for shorter hours?

Negotiated just after interview. Around 1 month before I started.