In a landmark ruling, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has confirmed that Eversheds' careful handling of an employee on maternity leave amounted to discrimination against other staff.

Last May Eversheds was forced to stump up £123k in compensation to a male associate who had been made redundant. Those facing redundancy were graded on various activities, including billing. A colleague of the male associate had been on maternity leave, and as it was pretty hard to gauge the billing effectiveness of someone who hadn't been in the office for months, the 'Shed awarded her full marks. A policy which the EAT ruled as discriminatory.

The firm appealed on the grounds that it had complied with the Sex Discrimination Act, according to a Lawyer report. But the EAT disagreed, saying that under the Act favourable treatment for women in connection with pregnancy and child birth must be "proportionate" and that Eversheds had gone too far.

But the 'Shed is still sticking to its guns. A spokeswoman said "The firm stands by the decisions it took with respect to the treatment of women on maternity leave, which it believes is consistent with its obligations under EU and UK law." The firm will be lodging notice of appeal. 

However, in the meantime the decision is of real concern to all law firms, which will need to look carefully at the way they treat staff on maternity leave. Speaking of which, some firms are considerably more generous than others:

Firm	100% pay	90 % pay	50% pay	Statutory* minimum	Comments
Allen & Overy	6 weeks	-	-	33 weeks	Bonus of 6 weeks' pay at start of maternity leave. Bonus of 8 weeks' pay for returning employees who stay for 3 months.
Clifford Chance	18 weeks	-	22 weeks	-
Eversheds	-	6 weeks	12 weeks	21 weeks	Return to work bonus of 10% of six week period and 50% of 12 week period for those back at work after 6 months.
Herbert Smith	24 weeks	-	-	-	24 weeks' basic pay is spread over the expected length of leave for a min of 39 and a max. of 52 weeks.
LG	6 weeks	-	-	33 weeks	Return to work bonus of up to 3 months salary if partners are happy with performance.
Linklaters	26 weeks	-	-	13 weeks	Option for further 13 weeks unpaid leave
Macfarlanes	23.5 weeks	-	-	-
Slaughter and May	18 weeks	-	-	21 weeks
Weil Gotshal	26 weeks		26 weeks

If your firm is not yet on the list, please click here to send us the low down on the maternity policy at your shop.

* Statutory maternity pay (the minimum an employer must pay) is 6 weeks at 90% salary followed by 33 weeks at £124.88. So well done LG for just scraping over the minimum requirement.