Help, sexual harassment in the workplace (lawfirm)

[christianirc]

My sister is seeking advice. She is a paralegal in a lawfirm and is being severly harassed. The person harassing her is in charge of all the computer systems and servers and is getting in to her private email and sending her messages then erasing them from the server. She has no proof because he has access to delete everything. She has only worked there for 1 week so has no relationship with the attorneys yet. She is so afraid of being fired if she says something. Also, as stated before, she has no proof. The things he are saying are extremely lude and has her feeling violated. We don't know what to do. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

PS They guy who is doing it is very important to the company and brings in a lot of money. They seriously do not want to lose him.

 

[Sockeye]

She needs to take the steps necessary to have this stopped.
First, let him know she wants the messages stopped, that she has no interest in him.

Second, let her office manager/supervisor know of the behavior and that she asked him to stop.

It's necessary for her to go through these steps before she can take it outside the company to the EEOC. It would be illegal for a company to fire her for making these statements, she is protected from retaliation for making a sexual harrassment claim.

 

[Beth3]

If she feels she needs proof, then why doesn't she print an email out when she receives it and take it to HR or the office manager?

They guy who is doing it is very important to the company and brings in a lot of money. They seriously do not want to lose him. Anyone is replaceable. Besides, your sister has only been there one week; she has no idea how the company will respond. This is a firm of lawyers who I expect are well aware of the legal implications of his actions. If they're smart, they'll come down on him like a ton of bricks.

 

[BelizeBreeze]

and WHERE is the law firm located?

 

[Beth3]

christian, don't answer that.

 

[BelizeBreeze]

christian, don't answer that.

THE STATE SILLY! Or didn't anyone notice that?

 

[Beth3]

Sorry, Belize. I thought you were barking up a different tree.

This looks to be one of those rare posts where the State is irrelevant though.

 

[BelizeBreeze]

Sorry, Belize. I thought you were barking up a different tree.

This looks to be one of those rare posts where the State is irrelevant though.

Unless the "State" is not a state at all but a provence or bergen.

 

[christianirc]

Thank you, I will tell her to take those steps. This is a major lawfirm so I hate to mention the state. Being a lawfirm, I don't know if they use these boards or not. I will tell her to print out messages as soon as she gets them and take them to the office manager. She has told him to stop. I'm not positive but I think she said she told the office manager, I will ask and I will keep you up to date. Thank you so much for the response.

 

[cbg]

Even if the law firm did check the boards, it is quite unlikely that they could identify themselves simply from the state. You may have additional options at the state level but we can't know that without the state.

 

[christianirc]

The state is Arkansas

 

[cbg]

With certain exceptions, which do not appear to apply here, Arkansas follows Federal law. I couldn't find anything at the state level that fits her situation.

I have to agree that if she's only been there a week, she can't really tell how the firm will respond. She needs to keep in mind that their only legal obligation is to make the offending behavior stop. They are not required to fire him or demote him or transfer him; they are not required to make their actions towards him public in any way; they are not required to (and they should not) tell her what action they have taken. Many people mistakenly assume that if there is no visible response from the company, such as firing the offender, that the company has done nothing. This is by no means the case in all situations. If the offending behavior stops, the firm has met their obligation under the law. She also needs to keep in mind that it can take time to complete an effective investigation - it's not necessarily going to happen overnight.

However, once she reports it, if after a reasonable time (for a major law firm think in terms of two-three weeks) nothing has changed, she should follow up with HR and let them know that the offensive behavior has continued. They can't know if she doesn't tell them. If there is STILL no change, she would be justified in filing a complaint with the EEOC, either at the state or the Federal level, or both.

 

[Gadfly]

The state is Arkansas. Well Bill moved to NYC, so you should be ok in getting this corrected.