When Sara Morrison felt she had been discriminated against for participating at a gender-critical Let Women Speak rally, she hoped others might identify with her cause.
To drum up support, the single mother turned to CrowdJustice to raise funds to take her employer to the tribunal, as she claimed to have been forced out of work because of stress.
In a post published earlier this summer, the Belfast Film Festival worker said: “I don’t believe that anybody should be discriminated against for having gender-critical views and talking about them.”
It wasn’t long before her case caught the eye of JK Rowling.
“Have donated,” the Harry Potter creator said in a post on social media, broadcasting her support to 14.2m followers on social media site X.
Overnight Morrison’s case, which is denied by the Belfast Film Festival, had raised thousands of pounds.
She has since more than doubled her £15,000 fundraising target after securing donations from over 1,000 backers.
One donor wrote: “I am a single mum currently going through similar with my employer of 20 years.”
Mumsnet ‘gardeners’
On Mumsnet, where gardening metaphors are code for fundraising because of the website’s rules on asking for money, people were urged to back Morrison’s case.
“Pitiful carrot planted but let’s hope there’s a whole field of them,” one message read.
“Just did a little digging – can’t understand why these organisations don’t realise that they can’t treat workers like this,” wrote another.
Simon Chambers, Morrison’s lawyer, who is also acting for Graham Linehan, a co-writer of Father Ted, in a separate gender-critical discrimination case, said the extra money means he can now “put as much resource” as possible into her legal battle.
In the latest example of the public backing cases they feel passionate about, a growing number of aggrieved employees are asking strangers to bankroll them for a wider cause.
Chambers said these are not bread-and-butter employment rows but disputes that “grasp the public’s imagination”.
Gender-critical discrimination cases such as Morrison’s are currently drumming up huge support as workers claim to be penalised for speaking out against transgender ideology or supporting womens’ rights.
Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley, a government lawyer, raised £40,000 this year after she was sued for saying that only women can get periods. The case against her was later dropped.
Chambers said that, from a legal standpoint, there are concerns staff members are being punished at work for having views that do not chime with that of a company’s customers.
Worryingly, Chambers says the law can feel “almost secondary to the whims and wishes of the consumers”.
Celebrities and Mumsnetters have helped to spread the word.
After former editor Ursula Doyle wrote on CrowdJustice that she was forced out of publisher Hachette for publishing Kathleen Stock’s gender-critical Material Girls, feminist Mumsnet users pulled out their gardening metaphors to build grassroots support.
“Bumper crops going to be coming in this year, I think,” one Mumsnet user wrote. “The harvests in the last few years just get better and better.”
Ms Doyle has now raised almost £50,000.
‘Collective resentment’
Tanya de Grunwald, who advises companies on employment issues, said the eagerness to back workers in these cases stems from a collective frustration.
“People’s generosity isn’t pure altruism,” she says. “It’s a result of collective pent-up resentment that a large number of people have around these issues.
“Currently, too many organisations seem to be misidentifying the groups that are most likely to kick up a stink.”
Now, anyone with a story to tell can raise enough funds to kick up a stink.
Lawyers are incentivised to take on CrowdJustice cases because, unlike other crowdfunding platforms, the money goes straight to them.
“We’re seeing law firms really leap on it,” said Dawn Bebe, the boss of platform Crowdfunder, which last year bought CrowdJustice for an undisclosed sum.
That decision has already paid off.
Bebe said the company has “seen its highest figures ever in the last few months”, as the public races to support those who they feel have been treated unfairly.
The number of cases on the website has risen 265pc since 2015, with the most common employment issues related to discrimination or unfair treatment.
What started as a niche idea by a group of lawyers and campaigners in 2014 has gone mainstream, with CrowdJustice raising £14m since its inception as the public flock to support the likes of Sir Alan Bates and Julian Assange.
“More and more people realise this is a legitimate way to raise money,” said Bebe, adding that most of the website’s growth has been over the last few years.
“What we looked at when we were thinking about buying it is that CrowdJustice has raised £14m to fight legal cases from people who couldn’t get legal aid or fund it privately for whatever reason.
“The people fighting cases [on the website] tend to be challenging the status quo and can influence case law if they win.”
That idea may spook bosses across the country, especially as the Government prepares for the biggest overhaul of workers’ rights in a generation.
Some boardrooms fear a spike in lawsuits as a result of the changes, such as awarding staff full employment rights from day one in a job.
One City chairman said he already feels the pendulum has swung too far towards the employee since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Lawyers acting for mistreated workers disagree. The rise of donation-based lawsuits shows that the public are frustrated and willing to part with their cash if they feel emotionally connected to someone’s story.
“Nobody is interested in a lawyer talking about a case – it has to be personality-driven by the claimants,” notes Chambers, adding that he attracts the “weird and wonderful cases” that might not have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for crowdfunding.
“Employers have had it good for an awful long time,” he says. “It’s a small swing back of the pendulum in the direction of the employee.”
Hachette declined to comment.
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