'No, You Can't Motivate Paralegals By Pointing Prop Guns At Them' Is A Sentence I Unfortunately Have To Write

Jones Day discrimination suit features wild allegation.

The case of Judy Thomas v. Jones Day is still very much in its infancy. The matter was removed to federal court only last week and we’ve not gotten a chance to hear from the defendants at all. A former Jones Day paralegal alleges a pattern of harassment and retaliation at the firm that saw her held to unreasonable standards and berated for requesting overtime. The Haitian-born Thomas alleges that the firm didn’t subject any of the young, white women working as paralegals to these conditions.

The latter allegation, suggesting that paralegals are kept around as props, carries disturbing echoes for a firm previously sued for promoting a “fraternity culture.”

Discrimination cases can sometimes turn on communication failures and a direct quote that demeans the plaintiff may have had a totally innocent intent. That doesn’t make it OK, and co-workers need to confront even harm that they’ve caused unintentionally, but it may well prevent the behavior from being actionable. There are a lot of allegations in this specific complaint that one could imagine having a less ominous explanation. “Don’t bill for overtime” could have meant “we’re going to mark down your hours on the bill” or something. Perhaps it was a deliberate attempt to steal from an employee, but there’s at least a conceivable counter-narrative. That’s what this matter will hash out.

But it’s hard to think of an explanation for this one:

I’m sure the firm will dispute this account in some way, but any response that doesn’t truthfully center on “there’s no such toy gun” is not going to sufficiently answer any of the problems here.

I know Jones Day has represented the NRA, but why does someone keep a gun of any sort in their desk? Maybe a Nerf dartgun on display because it was a deal toy when you closed on Nerf’s new headquarters or something. But even then, what scenario would make any gun an acceptable prop for communicating with an employee? It’s difficult to conceive of any interpretation of brandishing a toy gun other than to be menacing in a conversation with an employee who — at that point — had already raised concerns about harassment. “Oh, it was a toy” may fly as an excuse on the first day (it shouldn’t) but after the paralegal has already spoken with human resources about harassment, it should radically curtail the latitude a boss might expect to have.

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Despite this, I’m sure there will be people lining up to downplay this as “just a joke” or something, and this is why I depressingly have to string together the words, “no, you can’t motivate paralegals by pointing prop guns at them.”

That’s just rot in the institutional culture. Attorneys shouldn’t need Dale Carnegie training to stop before waving gun props around to motivate the staff. Whatever happens with this specific case, there needs to have a serious internal reckoning over there. Because it’s not enough to just offer excuses, the firm needs to get ahead of this and be constantly and proactively saying, “this isn’t the sort of thing we condone and here’s everything we’re doing to ensure this doesn’t happen here.”

But given the firm involved, the response will probably be a shrug and a press release announcing another Trump administration hire.

(Full complaint on the next page…)

Jones Day Atty Threatened Paralegal With Toy Gun, Suit Says [Law360]

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.