Ammi Burke vs Arthur Cox: Would a young male solicitor be labelled petulant and difficult?

An unfair dismissal case by a newly qualified solicitor from Castlebar, Ammi Burke, against legal giant Arthur Cox doesn’t, at first glance, promise much in the line of drama.

As it turned out only a playwright like Dario Fo – who weaponised laughter in pursuit of justice – or Ibsen, with his divisive, principled protagonists, could have done justice to the theatrics.

The central figure is the cast-out solicitor, representing herself. Burke, after 3½ years as an associate at Arthur Cox, qualified as a solicitor in 2019. Everyone agreed she was very good at her job.

Then a number of things happened: a senior partner returning from sabbatical invited some newly qualified solicitors to a lunch from which she felt, rightly or wrongly, excluded.

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Shortly afterwards another senior partner dropped by to thank her for work on “a deal”. She refused to be grateful for his gratitude.

Burke's mother said she sought 'righteous justice' for her daughter, who worked from 8am until 2am, and emails would prove it

And then she took umbrage at the associate who shared her office being moved out. She said she “felt like a pariah” and was taking it “very seriously”. According to her, the partner she complained to said he was taking it “very seriously” too. In November 2019, she was dismissed. “Summarily kicked out on a winter’s night,” she said.

Much of last Friday’s drama hinged on her unsuccessful request for certain emails and a summons for that senior partner whose interaction with her on that “deal” was, she said, “the pillar” of their defence.

In a charged atmosphere, senior counsel for Arthur Cox said Burke was “petulant”. He said her family had “picketed Arthur Cox offices”.

Burke’s mother said she sought “righteous justice” for her daughter, who worked from 8am until 2am, and emails would prove it. “It’s only the press of a button,” Burke’s mother said.

“You have no right to speak at the hearing,” said senior counsel.

Burke took exception to her family being described as a “travelling circus”.

“How dare you,” she said. “My family is held in very high regard in the local community in Castlebar. My mother is a qualified teacher who has taught for over 30 years. It is the height of insult – highly defamatory.”

In the end, along with legal dignity and decorum, the case was thrown out.

So why did this case descend into snubs, snobbery and slapstick squabbles?

The Burke siblings – 10 in all – highly educated, high achievers, are rapidly assuming legendary status

Ever since the crash, the Irish public has perceived powerful law firms, along with banks, as elitist and patriarchal. If evidence were needed of the warping effect of the patriarchy working against a woman who stood up to it, who refused to be grateful, it’s this case. Would a young male solicitor have been subjected to emotive epithets like “petulant”, “aggressive”, “victim mentality”, leaving the cumulative impression of a “difficult” woman?

A cursory reading of events confirms that Burke’s mother did disrupt the proceedings. But calling the Burke family a “travelling circus” is abusive and insults at least two communities in one go: the Burkes of Castlebar and the circus community; let’s assume the travelling part of that sentence had no malign intent towards any other respectable community.

The fact is, the Burke siblings – 10 in all – highly educated, high achievers, are rapidly assuming legendary status, like something out of a Nancy Mitford novel. Not least because they are veterans of so many court cases – some lost, some won, all arising out of principles held dear.

Elijah Burke famously won the case against the exclusion of home schooling from the calculated grading of exams necessitated by Covid.

The siblings lost their case against Galway University alleging discrimination contrary to the Equal Status Act on the grounds of religion. They campaigned against equal marriage in the referendum of 2015, their literature was removed. They were barred from all university societies.

Although the judge criticised the siblings and excoriated NUIG for “extraordinary and inexcusable lack of knowledge of fair or proper procedures”, he could not accept that these flaws were so “egregious” they could “only have been motivated by discrimination against their religious beliefs”.

There may have been no religious bias on the part of the college, but campus culture is another thing altogether. The Burkes were “cancelled” by those collectives of millennials, because they transgressed against liberal values.

The Burke campus cancellation centred on something even more contentious than marriage equality: Israel

The theocratic values of the Burkes were resoundingly rejected in 2015 by two-thirds of the population, who decided that LGBTQ people are as entitled to loving, legal relationships, with all that entails, as straight people. But if the Burkes are to be outcast, are the other third of the population who sincerely hold to traditional sanctities too, to be outcast?

Are the campus collectives deaf to the paradox of liberalism? That true liberalism means recognising values that are not necessarily liberal? That liberalism means tolerating ideas and people who are problematic?

The Burke campus cancellation centred on something even more contentious than marriage equality: Israel. The Burkes campaigned against BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), which seeks to isolate – de-legitimise even – the Jewish state. When all the campus, most of their peers, respected literary icons, all proclaim the cultural – and other – boycotting of Israel, dissent can be very lonely.

Supporting Israel takes courage. And a touch of that masochism, without which, stoic philosophers say, the meaning of life would be incomplete. The price of their principles has been pariahdom.

Even if Ammi Burke is “difficult” it doesn’t mean she hasn’t taken brave stands. But the difficulty of a “difficult” woman who has taken on the patriarchy getting a hearing is chilling.

Definitely Ibsen.