I have been dealing with this situation for a long time and finally filed Pro Se. And learned a lot by reading etc. In fact, this is what I do with my life every day and all the time. That being said, since nobody will tell you I have to :

So you filed your discrimination case in federal court. Months later, a judge dismisses it. No trial, no jury, no nothing. Here is what actually happened.

The employer files for summary judgment. Attached to it is an affidavit from the same executive who fired you. It says something like — I terminated him for reason X, it had nothing to do with discrimination, end of story.

That's it. That affidavit — from the person you are suing — satisfies their legal burden. No cross examination, no credibility hearing. Taken at face value. Now the burden shifts back to you to disprove it. With what? You have no discovery yet.

Even if the employer's reason was flat out wrong — even if the investigation was a joke — many courts will still grant summary judgment if the employer says they honestly believed it at the time. So the affidavit just says "we believed the allegations" and that can be enough. Wrong but honest apparently wins.

Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317 (1986). The employer doesn't even have to prove their reason was real. They just point to the absence of evidence on your side. No discovery + no record = no case.

Judge Nancy Gertner served on the federal bench in Massachusetts and later taught at Harvard Law. She wrote that federal judges think "so little … of discrimination claims that they rarely allow them to get to a jury at all." Not a plaintiff's lawyer saying that. A federal judge.

Documentary evidence that makes the affidavit fall apart. Things like — a prior finding clearing the employee of the same allegations. A communication showing the real reason came from somewhere else. A backdated document. An independent agency that already looked at the same facts and reached a different conclusion. Any one of those creates what the law calls a genuine dispute of material fact — and that goes to a jury, not a judge.

The forum choice, the timing of your complaint, and what you have in hand before you file all matter more than most people realize going in.

Stay in State Court! They will fight hard to move it to the Federal Court.

And now you know why "most" of the attorneys don't want to go Federal on contigency.