{"id":6841,"date":"2018-03-09T07:46:32","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T06:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=6841"},"modified":"2018-03-09T07:45:07","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T06:45:07","slug":"barrister-1-0-ordinary-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/6841\/","title":{"rendered":"Barrister 1-0 Ordinary Person"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Gareth Corfield<\/a>, this story makes for grim reading<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A former senior saleswoman at Intel who accused the firm of sex discrimination and wrongful dismissal has lost all of her claims and has been ordered to pay the company \u00a345,000 (~$63,000) by the middle of this month.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ouch! So what happened?<\/p>\n

Intel\u2019s Internet of Things global partner director Rod O\u2019Shea discriminated against \u201cstrong, confident women\u201d and engineered their dismissals, Guiney told the tribunal in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cRod at no time ever, offered to help or coach me, instead he made my life a misery and deliberately and spuriously damaged my reputation,\u201d she said in her witness statement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea organised an anonymous managerial survey about Guiney, something she described as unfair because it generated feedback from people who did not actually manage her, she told the tribunal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m reminded here of a post written by the Oilfield Expat<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to know if somebody is any good, don\u2019t bother asking their manager: a manager is never going to tell you their subordinate is crap.\u00a0 Instead ask one of their colleagues, particularly someone who was relying on them to deliver something.\u00a0 They\u2019ll tell you the truth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

But this isn’t really relevant. This is, however:<\/p>\n

The Windsor-based saleswoman, who previously worked for Oracle and IBM, was also warned by the judge to stop accusing O\u2019Shea of perjuring himself after she declared that he had made a mistake in his witness statement about reporting lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can clarify reporting lines. Introducing it as perjury sounds, to me, disproportionate,\u201d Employment Judge Alastair Smail told Guiney…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Being told off by a judge for accusing the defendant of perjury is pretty damning. What the hell was her lawyer doing?<\/p>\n

…who represented herself during the week-long January hearing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*Meaty slap to forehead.*<\/p>\n

She was up against barrister Akash Nawbatt QC, acting for Intel, whose cross-examination of her prompted Guiney to exclaim at one point: \u201cYesterday you walked all over me, barely letting me answer. Implying I deserved being fired!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh dear lord! What was this woman thinking, representing herself in a discrimination case and going up against a QC hired by a multi-national corporation! Was she trying to save money, or she thought she had the legal skills to argue the case herself?<\/p>\n

Nawbatt then pressed his point home: \u201cThat\u2019s a balanced request, isn\u2019t it?\u201d to which Guiney conceded: \u201cIt looks as if\u2026\u201d before hastily adding \u201c…but I know it\u2019s not because I\u2019ve seen what went on.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Groan. There’s a saying out there which goes “there’s nothing so expensive as a cheap lawyer”<\/em>. It appears having no lawyer costs you \u00a345k. If she’d spent \u00a3250-300 on an hour’s consultation, she would have at least been told whether she had a case or not. I’m no lawyer, but it seems she’s been treated harshly:<\/p>\n

The sacked saleswoman, who was dismissed in October 2016, after receiving an \u201cimprovement required\u201d grading (the lowest available) during her annual appraisal, said she was fired \u201cwith a day\u2019s notice in a corridor in Paris\u201d during a phonecall with Intel HR worker Rachael Merchant, in between scheduled meetings with potential clients.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This seems rather unfair, but is it illegal? Well, that’s what a lawyer would have told her, and she would also have been advised whether it’s worth opening a case, and told her the chances of winning. A proper lawyer might also, for a lot less than \u00a345k, have won her a settlement before it ever got to court. And if it did, the lawyer would manage the case so scenes like this wouldn’t ensue:<\/p>\n

However, even Judge Smail questioned the basis for Guiney\u2019s claim that her commission was unfairly docked by sexists, asking her: \u201cAre you saying the reason they told you you owed \u00a332k is because you are a woman?\u201d to which she responded, after a pause: \u201cProbably not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose allegations were only raised when you personally were at risk of redundancy, yes?\u201d chipped in Nawbatt. Damningly, Guiney conceded: \u201cWell, that is correct, yes.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I tried lawyering on the cheap once. It didn’t work and the problem remained. I hired an expensive lawyer, and he took care of it within days. It might seem dear at the time, but in the long run it’s worth it. It’s a lesson everyone has to learn one way or another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Gareth Corfield, this story makes for grim reading: A former senior saleswoman at Intel who accused the firm of sex discrimination and wrongful dismissal has lost all of her claims and has been ordered to pay the company \u00a345,000 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6841"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6865,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841\/revisions\/6865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}