LONDON (WithinTheLaw) - Sexism is rife throughout the legal profession; it is getting worse and Britain is one of the most serious offenders. Those are the shocking conclusions made by a number of reports into the legal sector. At a time when equality, diversity and inclusion are all common industry watchwords, many companies and individuals still have a long way to go.
Take the law firm Baker McKenzie, for example. Earlier in the year, its London managing partner was fined £55,000 for serious misconduct after attempting to hug and kiss a junior lawyer in 2012, and then attempting to improperly influence the resulting investigation.
On the announcement of the fine, the partner said he ‘bitterly regrets’ the incident, while Baker McKenzie which was also accused by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, claims it’s a very different company to the one it was ten years ago.
Even so, they are not alone. A survey from the International Bar Association (IBA), ‘Us Too?’, found that bullying and sexual harassment are rife. The study which covered 7,000 lawyers across 135 countries found that 62% of women said they had been bullied in relation to their work, while 38% of women said they had specifically faced sexual harassment.
The figures are shocking in themselves, but the report highlights multiple appalling incidents such as a current London employment tribunal case in which a junior solicitor claims she was forced to attend a sex show with a senior partner and had her employment terminated when she rebuffed his advances. He denies the allegation but there is more where that came from.
The problem is getting worse
Last week, former partner at Dechert, Monica Gogna, concluded her discrimination claim which was likely settled. Her complaint against Dechert was based on discrimination due to race and sex while working at the firm. The employment tribunal filing document stated that the proceedings levelled against “Dechert LLP & Others” had now been “dismissed following a withdrawal of the claim by the claimant”. Many of these types of claims are often settled, which means the true scale of the problem is likely greater than the data reports.
Complaints of inappropriate behaviour to the Solicitors Regulation Authority jumped from 25 in 2014/15 to 63 in 2018/19, a 152% increase, according to a freedom of information request from London law firm GQ/Littler.
This might, as the report’s authors suggest, be partly down to the #metoo movement.
“The increases coincide with the growth of the #MeToo movement, and likely reflect broader cultural changes arising from that,” said Sophie Vanhegan, a partner at the employment law specialist firm. “Although there has been progress among UK law firms, such as restrictions on alcohol consumption at work events, these figures show that there is still progress to be made.”
However, the London Bar’s report also claims there is an ‘epidemic’ of under reporting with the vast majority of bullying and sexual harassment cases going unreported. One woman, for example, explains how she allowed one serious incident to pass because of fears it might affect the man’s career.
“A fellow trainee solicitor groped me during a social event,” she says. “He was drunk and had, up until that point, been someone I considered a friend. I thought about reporting, but realised there was a serious chance he would never qualify as a solicitor if I did… I was not prepared to ruin his future over this.”
The problem is real, it’s serious and if you read the Pink Ghetto series on the excellent Above the Law website which features shocking stories from people who have been victims of sexual harassment, by their account, it’s not going away any time soon.
The 13,000 sexual harassment complaints received by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission exceed claims of racial, religious or ethnic discrimination, but this is almost certainly just the tip of a far larger and extremely ugly iceberg.
The 2019 Bar study found that victims of sexual harassment were unlikely to report the incident to their employer, with 74% of cases going unreported. In instances where women found the courage to report the matter, the response was inadequate 71% of the time.
For many reasons women choose to keep quiet. Often, as in the earlier case, it’s because they fear the impact on a friend or colleagues career, but as many of these cases show it’s because the perpetrators are people in positions of power and they have no confidence that their complaint will be taken seriously. An all too familiar sounding story, not unique to the legal profession.
Last year an associate at Squires Patton Boggs, Kristen Jarvis Johnson, gave voice to the scale of the problem when she announced her resignation on Twitter where she wrote about how she encountered “blatant gender discrimination, sexual harassment and a very clear glass ceiling” during her nine years at the international law firm.
Time to change
Her story and those of others will resonate with women working across the legal sector, which has been somewhat vocal about its need for change. Firms, for example, have been issuing guidance on what would constitute sexual harassment including the impact that text messages and other forms of digital communication can have.
Even so, change still seems a world away. While other industries work to become more inclusive, data from the Financial Times shows that women are still massively under represented at the top levels of law firms. An annual report by the SRA, found that women make up less than half of the lawyers in UK firms. Differences become more apparent with seniority, as just 34% of partners are female.
This imbalance not only means that women face an unbalanced playing field when it comes to their careers, but it also means that firms struggle to overcome a male dominated culture which holds back progress and ensures women may continue to face a toxic environment where harassment and bullying from their male counterparts remains.
Gender Inequality: Catalyst for Harassment?
Often gender discrimination and inequality is a catalyst for sexual harassment. This can be anything from lude comments and pay gaps, to a lack of women in leadership roles and dehumanising behaviour towards female employees. This lack of respect can quickly translate into sexual misconduct in the workplace and must be rooted out at its inception.
Betsy Havens, executive director of Strong Advocates, a Los Angeles employment law firm said, “large law firms can prevent sexual harassment by consistently enforcing zero tolerance sexual harassment policies, monitoring work culture and promoting more women to partner.’
There is no use in simply large law firms paying out large settlements when taken to court on the basis of sexual misconduct or gender inequality. Fighting the root of the problem by reiterating the appropriate workplace behaviour to male employees and putting more women in positions of power would serve as a countervailing force.
(Written by Klaudia Fior and Tom Cropper. Edited by Klaudia Fior and Michael O’Sullivan)