Suing Fund - Implications
I had an issue with a former fund. I had to leave the fund for what I believe are illegal reasons. A law firm confirmed and was happy to take the case on contingency.
We believe the our odds are good at winning against this fund (mutual fund). But I’m not sure what the implications of suing would be. For one, it would be in the public record. Win or lose, I wonder how damaging this would be to future employment prospects.
Any thoughts?
You had better hope you win because it will be much more difficult to get another job at a mutual fund. Whether you were right or wrong is just kind of irrelevant in this situation. No firm wants the risk of litigious employees. No idea what the actual case is here, but this might only make sense if the potential damages are significant.
Provide more context about the illegal firing. Also, is the money life changing or not? If not, it’s probably not worth the damage to your career and reputation.
Thanks for the replies. My thought regarding future employers was that maybe they wouldn’t discover this until running a background check after offering employment. At that point, maybe it wouldn’t be enough to move the needle.
It is firing related to a protected characteristic. Which actually it’s written into law that employers can’t hold it against you for exercising your protections, which is why I thought future employers might not hold it against you—if they already made an offer.. would be pretty obvious why they reneged at that point.
It’s pretty hard to think through the risk reward here: 1) the reward is hard to estimate and 2) the risk is all qualitative. As far as potential rewards, my lawyers saw it could be anywhere from 1 year of pay ($350k) to a lifetime of pay for knocking you off a career track. The risk, as I mentioned is tricky because it’s all qualitative.
Not a lawyer but I'd think the career knock off argument is a tough one unless you're somewhat senior. Not that you shouldn't consider it but certainly something to factor in and dig deeper with your solicitors.
Biggest error in your judgement is not taking into consideration how small this industry is and after 20-30 years a lot of people know someone at most places.
While you’re interviewing around it’s very easy for someone to informally ask about you off the record and cut you from the process if they don’t like what they hear without you even knowing.
Not trying to discourage you from pursuing the case but chances are even if you manage to get this thing settled privately any number of your old coworkers can kill your shot of landing elsewhere within the industry if they get wind of you interviewing somewhere and want to do some damage to you.
In my experience at least at larger more professional firms I would think almost all former coworkers would not be privy to any details about a confidential out of court settlement as that would be decided by upper management and the legal department who have very little incentive to disclose that they are paying a former employee for this reason. Of course given OP's description of the firm's behavior it doesn't seem particularly professionally run so maybe this not be the case and if there are legal filings in court that appear in the media the ex coworkers would likely find out.
And there is the other possibility that the former coworkers already have a poor impression of the OP (potentially due to the discrimination related to the OP's departure) in which case not much can be done at this point unfortunately.
I was mainly referring to the latter case.
My fund for reference has $10B AUM and nobody ever leaves. We’ve got a group of 50 or so people across the entire organization responsible for running that money and out of 50 people 35-40 have been working there for 15+ years together.
Within my coverage are only 5 people from analyst to partner so if hypothetically I were in OP’s shoes there is basically zero chance most people wouldn’t know if I sued internally. If I were to then leave and interviewed elsewhere I’d almost expect the firm to reach out to previous coworkers if they had a connection to see if I was worth pursuing as a candidate. In these off the record it would be incredibly easy to bad mouth a former employee or reveal that they’re suing your firm at which point you’d likely get rejected without an interview and never know why. Thats the risk he runs if he sues and depending on how powerful the people are he’s suing they could effectively blackball him from working ever again forcing him to change careers and he’d never know.
I think similar logic applies throughout the rest of the industry where even the largest firms hire 1-3 people a year and you never know who knows who. There are tons of guys I went to HS with, played sports against, who are family friends, or are friends of friends and their coworkers who that I’m in no way directly connected to on paper but know really well from going out together on weekends in our early 20’s and would take my call if I were to reach out.
If you haven't already I would suggest you discuss your concerns about future reputation with your lawyer. Your lawyer may not in the best position to judge the future reputational cost but may be able to suggest the best way to resolve your claims without publicly airing them. A confidential out of court settlement would presumably eliminate the reputational risk as well as save some hassle and time of lawyers but is obviously contingent on being able to reach an agreement with your ex employer. Assuming the ex employer's conduct was pretty bad they may also have reputational reasons for preferring a confidential settlement to litigating in court.
Presumably not relevant in this case given the information provided but among other reasons this is why many employment contracts provide for mandatory arbitration as a more private way to resolve disputes.
Have nothing to add other than if a firm is willing to take a case on contingency, you should pony up and engage them hourly + retainer. Contingency fees are typically excessive and you should come out ahead. Rarely will a respectable firm agree to contingency on a case that isn’t a slam dunk
Thanks again for the comments. Yea I took the fact that the law firm (H/Y/S law partner) was willing to take it on contingency as sign that the law firm believes the risk reward is favorable. Even if they took 1/3, I’d be left with something rather than nothing.
I think the fund is banking on me shying away from the public record. They’ve basically said we won’t settle and if you file a lawsuit we’ll try to trash you on the public record for future employers to see. Seems like a big game of chicken which is a bit scary
You should sue the firm, add these details in your filing about the firm threatened you, this will only help your case. Once it gets into court record, it will become public, then everyone will know the kind of shit the firm was doing to you and it will be massive reputation loss to them (much more than your career loss that you are worried about). And if you are in the right, I don't think it will be such a negative for you. People sue in this industry quite a bit, every PM would have some form of legal insurance to cover such situations in his life so he wouldn't mind too much
This sounds quite awful and odd to be honest. My guess is that the company is trying to trick you to give up. No large firms wanted to risk the reputational damage, especially if you have protected characteristics - as soon as you bring the case up to the court, whether you win or lose, your employers' name will be on the press but not for good, that's why there is confidential settlement agreement as an alternative resolution. If you win, then that will be more embarrassing for your employer, look at the GS's precedents with their female employees...
This is a question for the law firm, not us
I understand the OP's question to be less about whether retaliation after an employment discrimination compliant/lawsuit is legal (not a lawyer but it is pretty clearly prohibited) but whether it is a realistic concern in the mutual fund industry. In that context I understand Danger Zone's post to be a description of a realistic possibility in this industry and not an endorsement or a suggestion that the blackballing/blacklisting behavior described is legal. I also believe that it is legally prohibited for employer's to consider a previous employment discrimination lawsuit in hiring decisions but again it's perhaps naive to expect that to never happen so I think there is value in discussions of how to avoid prospective employers from easily finding out. My assumption is that the ethical and legally safest thing to do if you found out a prospective employee was suing their previous employer for employment discrimination would be to immediately contact the legal team of your firm and seek instructions on how to proceed without exposing your firm to legal risk but again I'm not sure most people would actually do that. There are also further consideration's for the OP and their lawyer on whether if the ex employer/coworkers attempt to retaliate they would be able to prove it in court.
Suing your former fund may impact future employment prospects due to public record exposure. Weigh potential gains against the risks. Consult with the law firm about confidentiality measures and consider alternative resolutions to minimize career repercussions.
ChatGPT giving great advice I see
How'd this turn out?
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