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Deidre Makes Good on Her Dare to Sue
Lawyer-turned-sex-novelist Deidre Dare vowed she would not take her firing lying down. Now she has made good on that vow. The U.S. lawyer has sued London firm Allen & Overy for £3.45 million over its discharge of her from its Moscow office.
Lest you've forgotten our earlier posts about Dare, she was a senior lawyer in the Moscow office when the firm ordered her to stop publishing erotic fiction on her personal Web site, DeidreDare.com. Even though she thereafter discontinued posting new chapters, the firm nonetheless gave her the boot on Jan. 30.
The firm said it fired her because her behavior "was unacceptable and totally at odds with the standards of behavior that we expect from all of our people." But Dare alleged that was a subterfuge to mask the real reason for her firing -- her complaints about sexual harassment by a male boss.
In an e-mail to the blog Above the Law, Dare provides some background on the lawsuit:
I filed in the UK at their employment tribunal but my lawyer (who is a plaintiff contingency dude) says that we are also going to high court. I'll take this to the European Commission on Human Rights if I have to. I mean, it still boggles my mind: fired for writing a book? Ridiculous. I'd have preferred to sue in States but there were too many jurisdictional questions. I guess we'll find out about UK but with the sexual obsession/love triangle bit and then they fire me: I'm pretty confident even the UK (which is very establishment, obviously) will see how unfair it all was.
When Above the Law asked about her reference to sexual obsession and a love triangle, she responded:
Oh. I fooled around with [important person at A&O] and then he got all upset b/c I started dating a younger Russian guy and then he told me to get another job and then I filed a grievance against him (b/c I was a big rainmaker and it was ridiculous of him to get rid of me) and then he complained about the website to London (it had been up FOREVER and read by everyone) and then they fired me. All reeks of witch hunt/retaliation.
Who needs steamy fiction when real life is so much saucier? Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of Deidre Dare, who continues to prove that truth is always more fascinating than fiction.
Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on April 28, 2009 at 11:42 AM | Permalink
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