Getting back to my Filing an effective EEOC complaint the DIY (and free) way post a couple of days ago, I thought I might give an example of a reasonably well-written complaint (in this case it is a copy of the complaint filed in federal court, not the EEOC complaint, but they are virtually identical, except the federal court complaint has legalese boiler plate added to the beginning and end of the document). This case was filed as a disability discrimination complaint against a college in Michigan based on a woman's clinical depression (clinical depression is defined as a disability under the American with Disabilities Act, as long as the employer knows about the depression). However, of all disabilities covered by the ADA, I am guessing that disability discrimination due to depression is probably one of the tougher ones to prove in court.
The complaint is here and the response of the college is here . Note that the complaint pretty much kept to the rule of "one nugget of information per point". It also gave a well written narrative that gives the reader a pretty good overview of the timeline and events, and who the main characters in the saga were. Note that even despite the fact that the complaint was well-written, the college simply denied most of it. I can say that as a Plaintiff that it can be really hard to read the response to your complaint, because it invariably belittles and/or completely denies whatever discriminatory situation you are in.
However, despite all the denials of the college in their response, within 8 months, the college settled with the Plaintiff for an undisclosed amount. For a discrimination lawsuit, that is a nice, quick, tidy ending. Kudos to the person who wrote the complaint (whether it be the Plaintiff or her lawyers in this case).
As a Plaintiff, if you decide to hire a lawyer to help you through the EEOC process, try to nevertheless be as attentive and participatory as possible to the writing of a complaint. I think a good deal of the incoherent complaints out there are likely due to some unscrupulous lawyers who take a Plaintiff's $10k to $20k as a retainer fee, then do a half-assed job of writing the complaint. What do they care...if the complaint doesn't make it through the EEOC process, they've made themselves a quick buck.
I am not denigrating the entire legal profession...I've met employment lawyers who really, really care about their clients (mine, luckily, is one of them). But I've also heard some horror stories from other women who have been discriminated against who just went to the first lawyer who would take their case (not realizing that they could (and should) shop around), and ended up being screwed out of thousands of dollars.
For gender discrimination cases in academia, to find a good lawyer try contacting the American Association of University Women Legal Advocay Fund at laf@aauw.org and ask them for referal list of attorneys in your state. The advantage to doing it this way is that you are almost certain to get an attorney who actually gives more of a damn about helping you than making a quick buck at your expense. For other tips on finding an attorney, see my How to find a good lawyer post; in it I suggest using the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER ) system. The PACER web pages are very cheap to view, and allow you to view all documents that have been filed for all federal court cases in America. As I mentioned in that post, to get started with PACER you need to create an account, which involves giving them a credit card number to which to bill the page charges. No need to worry about huge extraneous charges...there aren't any. It really is quite cheap to use.
I have looked at a *lot* of documents with PACER by now, and it is an incredibly good resource for Plaintiffs fighting a discrimination case. You can learn so much just by reading complaints against colleges and universities that have resulted in lawsuits that successfully settled, or won at a jury trial. I can't say enough good things about this system. If you are fighting a discrimination lawsuit, or even thinking of fighting a lawsuit, go browse around in the PACER system. Really, go ahead...do it now.
