Sexual Harassment

Victim of Sexual Assault Tries To Drag Match.com Down A Slippery Slope

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Would new Match.com regulations stop Ben Roethlisberger from connecting with a receiver?

By now, many of you have see the story about the woman who is suing Match.com. It’s been in the L.A. Times, the WSJ Law Blog (replete with a very creepy picture), and the ABA Journal. It’s a sad story. A woman alleges she was sexually assaulted while on a date with a man she met through Match.com.

If the allegations are true, you can only hope her attacker is punished to the full extent of the law.

This story is making national news because, in addition to pursuing charges against her alleged attacker, the woman has also filed a lawsuit against Match.com. She wants them to conduct a screening of the users on their site.

In the heat of a disturbing story about an assault, I’m sure that checking a member’s name against a registry of sex offenders seems like a minimal requirement that can be easily done by a large company like Match.com. At least that’s what her lawyer would like us to think.

But I think any dispassionate and reasonable analysis of the situation would reveal that such a requirement is at worst dangerous, and a best entirely ineffective. I don’t care how many proprietary algorithms these dating sites throw at you — at the end of the day, there is no substitute for human intuition, common sense, and luck….

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Quote of the Day: A racy novel? No, just a Canadian law firm party.

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[Partner David] Cowling and the very intoxicated summer student began to dance in a sexually explicit manner. The student’s arms were around Cowling’s neck and his hands were on her waist and buttocks. While dancing, Cowling placed his hand on the student’s breast. Shortly thereafter, the summer student fell to the floor. She was assisted to her feet by Cowling and others. The summer student then went to the washroom where she vomited over her hair, body and clothes

– Canadian lawyer Sarah Diebel, in the statement of defense she filed in opposition to a defamation lawsuit by David Cowling, a former partner at the Canadian law firm of Mathews Dinsdale & Clarke.

(Cowling sued Diebel and another former associate, Adrian Jakibchuk, for defamation, alleging that their statements about a wild party in January 2009 defamed him. We covered Cowling’s defamation lawsuit here. Earlier this week, Jakibchuk sued Mathews Dinsdale for wrongful termination, bringing the firm’s “night of debauchery” back into the news.)

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Husband of Porn-Posing Canadian Judge Pleads Guilty

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Madam Justice Lori Douglas, clothed.

It’s been a while since we last checked in on Madam Justice A. Lori Douglas, the Canadian jurist featured in pornographic photos that found their way to the internet. Today we have an update.

The update relates to Justice Douglas’s husband, Jack King — the Canada lawyer responsible for posting the pictures of his wife engaging in bondage, playing with sex toys and administering fellatio, among other activities….

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Morning Docket: 03.24.11

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* Conky the Robot says the word of the day at the Barry Bonds trial yesterday was…syringe. AAAAHHHH!!!!!! [ESPN]

* Robert George, a prominent Boston defense attorney, stands accused of money laundering. Forget prison for a second; what is he going to do with 40 subscriptions to Vibe? [Boston Globe]

* Lilo rejected a plea bargain in her jewel heist case yesterday. Bit of a tangent, but what do you think Lindsay smells like? I bet she smells like freckles. [ABA Journal]

* “Bingham, Touched for the very first time… by Madonna.” [Am Law Daily]

* Lloyd Blankfein testified in the Rajabba case and (you will not believe this) shook… Rajabba’s …hand. OMG. [Reuters]

* Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, prosecutor Ismael R. Ozanne is going to put the whole system on trial. [Bloomberg]

* The Supreme Court grappled with the question of whether poor people are entitled to legal representation in cases where they face jail time for failure to pay child support. On a related note, here is video of Shawn Kemp dunking on Alton Lister’s head. [New York Times]

* Dov Charney, world-renowned maker of leggings and sweatbands, once again stands accused of being a creep. [Los Angeles Times]

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Non-Sequiturs: 03.10.11

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* Howrey’d come to this? Robert Ruyak’s ruminations on his law firm’s fall. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Speaking of Howrey, it’s only the latest of several major law firms to go from Am Law 100 status to dissolution. Take a swim in the Biglaw Dead Pool. [Law Shucks]

* Dov Charney, CEO of American Apparel, has been hit with his biggest sexual harassment lawsuit ever — one seeking $250 million in damages. [Gawker]

* Bess Levin on the Raj Rajaratnam trial: “People helping people is all this is about.” [Dealbreaker]

Raj Rajaratnam

* “How Ohio State Athletics Flunked the Bar Exam.” Or: I’m going to wait until Elie returns from vacation before tackling sports stories. [Off Tackle Empire]

* Speaking of Elie, we already know his answer to the question posed by Francis G.X. Pileggi: “Does Delaware need another law school?” [Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog]

* Here’s a sports-related story I can understand. This fact pattern, dubbed the case of the “wayward weiner” or the “fateful frank,” belongs on a torts final exam. [ABA Journal]

* Professorial catfights can be so much fun. Watch Professor Stephen Bainbridge go after Professor Brad DeLong. [Professor Bainbridge]

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Police Tell Female Law Students ‘Don’t Dress Like a Slut’ To Avoid Sexual Assault

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Canadian police might not know the difference between law students, Kim Cattrall, and victims of sexual assault.

Sigh.

You know, I kind of get what this police officer was trying to say. When speaking in front of a group of law students at Osgoode Hall Law School, a Toronto cop told women they could avoid sexual harassment and assault by not dressing like sluts.

As a black person, I’ve heard similar things. If you don’t want to get racially profiled, “don’t dress like a gangbanger” and all that. And that kind of advice is true to some extent. It’s not “fair,” but you have to be aware of how you present yourself.

The thing is, what kind of idiot white male cop thinks that female law students don’t already know this? I think women at a law school in Canada know damn well that they can’t walk around campus dressed only in a bra and hot pants. They should be able to walk around in whatever the hell they like without being sexually assaulted, but they know how the world works.

When did dress sense become a safety tip?

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Aggrieved Women Potpourri: Sexual Harassment Canada-Style, and the Return of Charlene Morisseau

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Jaime Laskis

I’m not trying to compare the claims of Jaime Laskis, a former associate at the prominent Canadian law firm of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, with those of Charlene Morisseau (a legendary Lawyer of the Day honoree, from 2007). But we’ve got two stories vaguely related to alleged employee harassment and discrimination in the legal profession, and I wanted to click them both off so I have something to change the subject with when Sweet Hot Justice asks me if she’s a cougar when we meet for drinks tonight.

Let’s start with Jaime Laskis’s story, which is a bit more newsy. Laskis was an associate in the New York office of Toronto-based Osler, who claims she suffered various forms of sexual harassment while she worked there. One partner allegedly said that Harvard University was full of “pretty women pretending to get an education.”

I know, I know, that’s sounds like a man who has never been to a Harvard party. But Laskis makes other allegations….

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Madam Justice Lori Douglas: Underneath Her Robe

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Madam Justice A. Lori Douglas - with her clothes ON.

We’ve been covering the salacious tale of Madam Justice A. Lori Douglas, a Canadian judge, for several months now. Justice Douglas — associate chief justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Manitoba, and a member of the Canadian Judicial Council — is currently the subject of an ethics investigation. As mentioned earlier, “naked photographs of [Justice Douglas] engaging in bondage, playing with sex toys and performing oral sex were previously posted on the internet.”

Our stories on Justice Douglas, collected here, have been quite popular. They have generated strong traffic. But some readers had the predictable reaction of TTIWWOP — “This Thread Is Worthless Without Pictures.”

Well, now we have the pictures….

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Protip: Do Not Buy A Vibrator For Any Lady At Your Office

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Here are some instructions.

Valentine’s Day is coming up. Married men are looking forward to their annual opportunity to have oral sex (don’t act like I’m the only one). Single guys are wondering what kind of depressed and ovulating women will show up at their local bar, alone. And ladies are just hoping for something that will turn all of their girlfriends into jealous bitches. As always, the day promises to be a massacre.

But regardless of your Valentine’s Day motives, please note that there are some intimate gifts that are inappropriate in all situations: gifts like vibrators. Not as a Valentine’s Day present, not as a Christmas present, not as a birthday present. Women can’t show it off to their friends, and it works against you as a sexually suggestive gift. Vibrators should only be given to women you’ve already had sex with, preferably right before the first Thursday of the NCAA tournament so they have something to do with themselves.

Sadly, a New York man was not familiar with this rule, and he bought one of his co-workers a vibrator for her birthday. He was her boss. Now, he’s getting sued — because that’s what happens when you are the idiot who buys a vibrator for a woman you work with…

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A Racy (But Fake?) Email About An Associate’s One-Night Stand With A Married Female Partner

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Maybe Demi Moore - and Ashton Kutcher, not Michael Douglas - will play them in the movie.

Last week, we started hearing about an amazing email making the rounds. In this email message, a male associate at a large law firm allegedly described, in excruciating detail, a supposed sexual encounter with a married female partner at the firm.

Apparently the raunchy email was making like an STD and going viral within the firm. Concerned about this development, the firm tried to crack down on dissemination by distributing a hard-copy memorandum to lawyers and staff, warning them about recent “spam” containing inappropriate language that was being circulated between several firm email accounts. Memo recipients were directed not to forward the “spam” if they received it, and they were also told not to disseminate the paper memo warning of the “spam.”

Meanwhile, the firm’s information-technology team was frantically trying to put the horse back in the barn. Members of the firm’s IT department were working overtime to locate and delete all copies of the email that they could find.

Alas, they didn’t work fast enough. The sexually explicit message — WARNING: stop reading here if such talk might offend you — finally found its blessed way to the Above the Law inbox….

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