A law firm and Washington-based legal staffing firm agreed to settle with the US Department of Justice over claims they discriminated against people who had dual citizenship in the US and another country as well as people who weren’t citizens but had authorization to work.
The Department of Justice announced the settlement on Thursday with law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP and legal staffing firm Law Resources Inc.
Investigations found both Arnold & Porter and Law Resources put a policy in place of excluding dual citizens and work-authorized non-US citizens when recruiting temporary employees for a document review project in the fall of 2018, according to the department. The investigation also found that Law Resources retaliated against a person who complained by putting her on a do-not-hire list.
Screening out such workers violates the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The law firm and staffing firm will pay a civil penalty of $56,500, according to the department. The staffing firm will pay an additional civil penalty of $3,000 and offer $11,875 in back pay to the worker who faced retaliation. Further, the companies will jointly offer a $55,000 back-pay fund to other affected workers, train relevant employees and be subject to monitoring for two years.
The investigation was begun after a discrimination complaint was filed against Law Resources.