In recent weeks, students at the Paris-based École de Formation Professionnelle des Barreaux (EFB), the biggest of France's 11 law schools, have taken to social networks to denounce poor organisation and teaching and to demand their money back. And now, as if that were not enough, the institution is embroiled in an unprecedented labour dispute.
According to information obtained by Mediapart, four of its 35 employees accuse it of psychological harassment in lawsuits just lodged with the Paris public prosecutor. The four lawsuits, written by lawyer Marie Dosé, were submitted on 27th June.
They list bullying, insults, humiliations, reproaches, false allegations, practices akin to spying and a tangible decline in working conditions that caused several cases of burn-out. They also allege withholding of information, division, authoritarianism and systematic denigration, all of which are typical in cases of psychological harassment. Supporting the lawsuits is an impressive number of emails, affidavits and medical certificates.
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The first of the four employees was hired in 2010 and put in charge of communication until she was put on sick leave for “professional exhaustion” in March this year. She says she was harassed and her responsibilities were progressively taken away after she refused to spy on colleagues. She also filed a legal complaint on May 4th because her access to her professional email account was blocked during her sick leave.
The second had worked for EFB since 2003, first as an external contractor and then, from January 2015, as manager of the school's computer system. She says she suffered pressure and continual attacks from her superiors and was then pushed aside. She has been on sick leave since February and is currently in the process of being sacked.
The third was recruited in 2010 as head of the school's department of languages and international relations. She says she was never able to fulfil the role that had been promised to her, was kept at a distance geographically and then her assistant was removed. She suffered from depression caused by “difficulties in professional relationships” and was fired in April last year.
And the fourth, who had also started as an outside contractor from 2006, was given the task of planning classes for the students' initial training sessions from July 2012. He reported dysfunctioning in way the school was run and was dismissed for serious professional misconduct in February 2016. But he had already managed to get an internal enquiry into psychological harassment opened and had alerted the Labour Inspectorate.
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The lawsuits, while targeting EFB's management as a whole, focus on the role of the institution's scientific director of training, a university lecturer who is effectively the EFB's second in command. Mediapart was unable to reach her for comment despite making several attempts to do so and has therefore decided to withhold her name.
The four employees allege in the lawsuits that all their internal alerts were ignored and no action was taken. They have also taken their cases to an industrial tribunal, where Michel Henry, a lawyer who has recently defended other EFB employees, has represented them.
Mediapart tried to reach both Jean Néret, a litigation lawyer and counsel who is EFB's director, and Frédéric Sicard, the chairman (batonnier) of the Paris Bar Association who chairs EFB's board, for comment without success. Ironically, both are specialists in labour law. Néret also backed Sicard in his bid to become batonnier last January.
According to Mediapart's information, the school's management told a board meeting on 29th June that the four dismissed employees were conspirators who wanted to harm EFB. The tensions at the school were also discussed at a meeting of the Paris Bar General Council on 2nd July.
The Paris Bar elects a representative every two years. Over recent years, EFB has seen changes of both director and its hierarchical structure, with all the power struggles, games of personal ambition and hierarchical tensions that such changes entail. Job titles were changed and there were cases of work-related illness among staff.
However, the human factor is not the only thing behind the school's current instability. According to several sources, it is also suffering from having grown too quickly, with more than 2,000 students enrolled now compared with only 254 just over 30 years ago in 1983. This growth crisis is linked to the profession's own dynamics. Paris currently has 28,000 lawyers, a figure that has almost doubled in the past decade.
So the school's organisational difficulties have become structural difficulties. Its new headquarters, a 10,000-square metre building at Issy-les-Moulineaux, just south-west of inner Paris, was only inaugurated in 2013 but is already almost at breaking point. Classes have to be given in several law faculties in the Paris region. And above all, given the sheer number of teachers, the quality and homogeneity of the teaching is difficult to verify or guarantee. “There is quite a bit of cronyism and sloppiness,” said a Paris lawyer who taught there for several years.
This makes things unpredictable for the students. “Most classes are given by lawyers who talk about their lives and they are of very variable interest. It can be really good or completely narcissistic and irrelevant,” said one student who is very disappointed with her course. She said she had received no training in accounting, social security charges and managing a legal practice, and that several classes and even exams had been cancelled at short notice.
In recent weeks the student lawyers have expressed their discontent on social networks. Some seek reimbursement of school fees, which they say are too high given the teaching they receive. Fees are set at 1,600 euros for a two-year course consisting essentially of internships, and with just four months of classes in a semester.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Sue Landau