Dealing with verbal abuse and harassment in law firms

The stories may be the stuff of folklore: the screaming partner, the humiliated legal secretary, the articling student reduced to a lackey, running personal errands.

But verbal abuse and harassment in law firms – as elsewhere – remains a concern, making it imperative for partners to set the bar high and show through their own behaviour that harassment and bullying are neither tolerated nor encouraged.

Is there a culture of abuse in law firms?

The Law Society of Ontario's Discrimination and Harassment Counsel (DHC) report covering its activities in the second half of 2018 (the last year for which a report is available), and highlighted a trend it had earlier observed: an increasing number of legal professionals contacting the law society with complaints of abuse in their workplaces.

As described in an article by Elizabeth Bingham of Rubin Tomlinson LLP, “The trend remarked upon by the DHC is mirrored in the International Bar Association’s May 2019 report, ‘Us Too: Bullying and Sexual Harassment in the Legal Profession.’ The report details the results of a 2018 survey conducted by the IBA [International Bar Association] that received responses from almost 7,000 legal professionals in 135 countries, including Canada. The responses came from a variety of legal workplaces, including law firms, government and in-house. Among the results:

• One in two female survey respondents and one in three male survey respondents reported experiencing bullying in the workplace.
• One in three female respondents and one in fourteen male respondents reported experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace.
• Fifty-seven percent of those who experienced bullying and seventy-five percent of those who experienced sexual harassment never reported it.”

Examples of bullying in the workplace

The behaviours reported to the DHC in the second half of 2018 included verbal abuse, threats and humiliation; not being paid for hours worked; being forced to work 100 or more hours per week every week; and being subject to bullying. The two complaints by articling students were both made by women, who identified sexual harassment and/or discrimination based on family status.

In the first half of the year, the largest number of “out-of-mandate contacts” came from articling students, an earlier DHC report stated, with complaints including not being given legal work; being forced to run personal errands for their articling principal and/or their principal’s family; being subjected to verbal abuse and threats; not being paid; being paid less than minimum wage; verbally abusing and/or humiliating students in front of other lawyers/clients; and bullying.

“Every month, approximately 15 complaints are made to the Law Society of Ontario’s DHC regarding alleged discrimination or harassment by a member of the legal profession,” writes University of Windsor assistant law professor Noel Semple in Slaw. Sexual harassment is the most common complaint to the DHC, representing a quarter of the complaints.”

The risks of power imbalances

“Power imbalance is a risk factor for harassment,” Semple continues. “Some argue that articling creates an unusually extreme power imbalance, by making the articling student’s ability to practice law dependent on the principal’s essentially unaccountable say-so. Indeed, there is persuasive evidence that articling students are especially likely to be victimized.”

In a thoughtful column for Slaw some years ago, University of Calgary law professor Alice Woolley described her own experience of sexual harassment and angry outbursts at the hands of “a very senior and eminent lawyer” in her first job after her call to the bar. Although she did not see this man’s behaviour as typical, “it also seems to me that his actions are not divorced from the professional culture of lawyers – a culture I am part of,” she wrote.

Her column concluded with a call for lawyers to “create a culture where the subject of our colleagues’ ‘hotness’ is not discussed, where we create appropriate separation between professional and sexual interactions, where senior lawyers [respect] the limits on personal interactions that come with seniority and power.”

Reducing abuse

Rubin Tomlinson’s Bingham sets out a framework for how legal organizations should tackle the internal problem of harassment and bullying.

First, she writes, Acknowledge the problem. “In an oftentimes high-pressure and adversarial profession, it can be tempting to dismiss harassment in the workplace as just the price of doing business or part of paying your dues … But keep in mind that, in addition to the cost of harassment … , like any other employer, lawyers have obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to investigate and respond to allegations of harassment in the workplace.”

Second, Start at the top. “From articles to partnership, lawyers know that we work in a profession that is especially hierarchical. It’s not surprising, then, that the IBA’s survey found that the most common reason why subjects did not report bullying or sexual harassment was the profile or status of the perpetrator. Under these circumstances, it’s particularly important for a legal organization’s leadership to expressly commit to dealing with harassment in the workplace and to model appropriate behaviour themselves.”

Third, Training, training, training. “Like all employers, legal organizations are required by the Occupational Health and Safety Act to have policies on workplace violence and workplace harassment and to review them annually. While policies are a great start towards demonstrating your organization’s commitment to a harassment-free workplace, employees also need to be aware of the policies, understand their provisions and know what to do when they witness or experience harassment. … Legal organizations should consider conducting training that is tailored to the legal profession.”