A law firm in Victoria has been pulled up for monopolising an employee’s time and for its “repugnant” work conditions, which included forcing a junior lawyer to work up to 24-hour days and watch an ice hockey movie at 1am to understand the boss’ philosophical position.
Melbourne’s Magistrate Court ruled Erudite Legal had breached workplace laws as it handed down a more than $50,000 fine to the now-deregistered firm on Wednesday. It marked a rare use of Fair Work Act laws against unreasonable hours in the legal sector, which has been known for its long work hours.
As reported by the Australian Financial Review, the employee’s 25 days of employment saw her work days range anywhere between 12 to 18 hour days, and even two 24-hour days.
She was underpaid $8,000, receiving just $1,000 for more than 225 hours work over the three weeks.
“[Her] time was monopolised by [Erudite] and she was isolated both physically, and in her capacity to communicate, from her family,” said Magistrate Kathryn Fawcett in her ruling.
“In all the circumstances, they made her working environment so repugnant that it constituted a repudiatory breach of contract.”
In her first week, the lawyer — whose identity was not disclosed — worked on a Saturday and did not go home that night, working from 12pm to 12pm the next day. She was instructed to rest and return at 6pm by her boss Shivesh Kuksal, after which she worked until almost 1am.
She was also told she would be working in a hotel room rather than going home for a few nights. As reported by HR Leader, the directors determined the team would work from a hotel in the city for a few nights to avoid wasting time with the commute home after each shift.
Upon arriving at the hotel, the lawyer realised that only a single two-bedroom suite had been booked for herself and the two directors. She was presented with the option of sharing a bed with director Lulu Xu or instead sleeping on the couch.
The court heard she was then forced to share a bed with the manager, which Fawcett determined “deprived [the employee] of any form of personal autonomy or agency without any rational justification”.
In another instance, she was reportedly instructed to watch 2004 sports film Miracle starring Kurt Russell as a coach leading the 1980 US Olympic ice hockey team to victory, with Kuksal telling her to watch “at least half” to illustrate a philosophical point he was trying to make.
He then texted her through the night, including questioning which scenes she was watching, and she finished the movie at nearly 3:30am. The court heard Kuksal would often lecture her about history, world religion, philosophy, management style and his superior IQ.
In a message to the firm’s accountant the following day, the lawyer said she needed to vent and was “an inch close to quitting at this point. I can’t handle much more of this”.
“I am so sick of the insults and the lectures – I honestly feel that he is treating me in a way that is completely unjustified and utterly disproportionate to the rest of the team”, she said, per HR Leader. “I’ve ‘worked’ 110 hours in eight days. I can’t live like this. Especially not with the verbal abuse and personal insults on top.”
In a phone call shortly after, Kuksal allegedly threatened to sue her for not providing four weeks’ notice when she said she “didn’t want the job anymore”.
She received an email after the call that her employment had been terminated.
As reported by the Australian Financial Review, the lawyer’s health problems were exacerbated by excessive work hours during her employment, and got in the way of organising her mum’s return from the hospital after a serious illness.
She was even made to work while on leave to go to her ex-partner’s funeral.
Erudite Legal did not defend the case and did not comply with a court order to rectify the underpayments, which Magistrate Fawcett said showed a “striking lack of contrition”. But, Fawcett held the matter did not fulfil the legal definition of “systematic” behaviour that required the involvement of one or more “other” people.
The firm was fined $22,200 for failing to pay on time (a third of the maximum) and $26,640 for the unreasonable hours, or 40 per cent of the maximum.
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