Character and Fitness Issue Question Forum

[The Lsat Airbender]

This is an issue, and you definitely responsive to questions asking about employer disciplinary action, but probably not insurmountable. It sounds like you've learned from this experience and done your best to change your behavior. This goes without saying but I'd be extremely careful with alcohol from here on, especially if (as it sounds like) it's interacting with medication.

The mixture of alcohol abuse+sexual harassment is concerning enough that you should probably consult with a C&F attorney, who can give you jurisdiction-specific advice and also help you write any disclosures.

[Francine.Frensky]

This is an issue, and you definitely responsive to questions asking about employer disciplinary action, but probably not insurmountable. It sounds like you've learned from this experience and done your best to change your behavior. This goes without saying but I'd be extremely careful with alcohol from here on, especially if (as it sounds like) it's interacting with medication.

The mixture of alcohol abuse+sexual harassment is concerning enough that you should probably consult with a C&F attorney, who can give you jurisdiction-specific advice and also help you write any disclosures.

Do you really believe this was harassment and not just misconduct?

[QContinuum]

This is an issue, and you definitely responsive to questions asking about employer disciplinary action, but probably not insurmountable. It sounds like you've learned from this experience and done your best to change your behavior. This goes without saying but I'd be extremely careful with alcohol from here on, especially if (as it sounds like) it's interacting with medication.

The mixture of alcohol abuse+sexual harassment is concerning enough that you should probably consult with a C&F attorney, who can give you jurisdiction-specific advice and also help you write any disclosures.

Do you really believe this was harassment and not just misconduct?

Are you serious? You admit to "flirting," "leaning on him," "asking him for a ride home" and "touching his hand and his face a lot." That alone, absent consent, is sexual harassment (and arguably assault). In addition, you are also alleged to have "touched his leg and kissed his neck." That, absent consent, is most certainly sexual assault.

Your attempt to minimize your actions as "just misconduct" suggests you have a long way to go before you're going to be fit to practice law.

[Francine.Frensky]

Look, I’m sorry. I’ve never dealt with anything like this before and was seeking to clarify your assessment of the situation. I was not trying to minimize my actions in any way.

[cavalier1138]

This is an issue, and you definitely responsive to questions asking about employer disciplinary action, but probably not insurmountable. It sounds like you've learned from this experience and done your best to change your behavior. This goes without saying but I'd be extremely careful with alcohol from here on, especially if (as it sounds like) it's interacting with medication.

The mixture of alcohol abuse+sexual harassment is concerning enough that you should probably consult with a C&F attorney, who can give you jurisdiction-specific advice and also help you write any disclosures.

Do you really believe this was harassment and not just misconduct?

1. Yes.

2. Doesn't matter what you think it was. It matters what an outside observer is going to think and what your prior employer is going to say when they're asked to explain the situation to the bar. Absolutely contact a C&F attorney, because this is a serious enough issue that you want to know what effect it will have before you start committing to law school.

[The Lsat Airbender]

This is an issue, and you definitely responsive to questions asking about employer disciplinary action, but probably not insurmountable. It sounds like you've learned from this experience and done your best to change your behavior. This goes without saying but I'd be extremely careful with alcohol from here on, especially if (as it sounds like) it's interacting with medication.

The mixture of alcohol abuse+sexual harassment is concerning enough that you should probably consult with a C&F attorney, who can give you jurisdiction-specific advice and also help you write any disclosures.

Do you really believe this was harassment and not just misconduct?

In my jurisdiction the touching makes it sexual harassment per se. Q is right that sexual assault/battery might be more appropriate and also that it's concerning for you to play semantics like this.

It's been agonizingly slow progress, but society is starting to take these things seriously. You could have ruined your boss's life that night, you could have exposed the company to huge legal problems, and you could have landed yourself in jail. Everyone involved, especially you, is lucky that the whole situation resolved itself so cleanly. You need to be extremely careful going forward, because you don't deserve and won't get a second chance. That's why I strongly recommend getting the advice of an attorney.

[QContinuum]

In my jurisdiction the touching makes it sexual harassment per se. Q is right that sexual assault/battery might be more appropriate and also that it's concerning for you to play semantics like this.

It's been agonizingly slow progress, but society is starting to take these things seriously. You could have ruined your boss's life that night, you could have exposed the company to huge legal problems, and you could have landed yourself in jail. Everyone involved, especially you, is lucky that the whole situation resolved itself so cleanly. You need to be extremely careful going forward, because you don't deserve and won't get a second chance. That's why I strongly recommend getting the advice of an attorney.

I agree that the resolution - OP being permitted to resign, and even being allowed to stay on the payroll a few extra days to maintain eligibility for the year-end bonus - was about as favorable as it could reasonably have been for OP. I second the advice that this should be a real wake-up call to turn over a new leaf.

Given OP's username, I suspect OP is female. If so, perhaps that's why OP doesn't seem to fully recognize the seriousness of her conduct. But sexual harassment doesn't turn on the perpetrator's (or victim's) gender. If it makes it easier, imagine a hulking 6'3" male bodybuilder and his boss, a petite, slender 5'3" woman. Imagine the drunk bodybuilder hitting on his boss, physically leaning on her, stroking her hand and face, and asking her to give him a ride home. Sound problematic? What if the bodybuilder, once alone in a car with her, starts caressing her leg and kissing her neck? "Just" misconduct? Not sexual harassment?

OP, we don't mean to browbeat or pile on you. TLS prides itself on being a welcoming community, and we're always happy to give advice to our members. But giving honest advice sometimes means giving unpleasant advice. It's not fun for us to deliver bad news (delivering good news, and being thanked by excited and grateful advice-seekers, is so much more uplifting and rewarding!), but we don't control whether the news is good or bad. It would be a disservice to the community if we were to only tell people what they want to hear.

[Francine.Frensky]

In my jurisdiction the touching makes it sexual harassment per se. Q is right that sexual assault/battery might be more appropriate and also that it's concerning for you to play semantics like this.

It's been agonizingly slow progress, but society is starting to take these things seriously. You could have ruined your boss's life that night, you could have exposed the company to huge legal problems, and you could have landed yourself in jail. Everyone involved, especially you, is lucky that the whole situation resolved itself so cleanly. You need to be extremely careful going forward, because you don't deserve and won't get a second chance. That's why I strongly recommend getting the advice of an attorney.

I agree that the resolution - OP being permitted to resign, and even being allowed to stay on the payroll a few extra days to maintain eligibility for the year-end bonus - was about as favorable as it could reasonably have been for OP. I second the advice that this should be a real wake-up call to turn over a new leaf.

Given OP's username, I suspect OP is female. If so, perhaps that's why OP doesn't seem to fully recognize the seriousness of her conduct. But sexual harassment doesn't turn on the perpetrator's (or victim's) gender. If it makes it easier, imagine a hulking 6'3" male bodybuilder and his boss, a petite, slender 5'3" woman. Imagine the drunk bodybuilder hitting on his boss, physically leaning on her, stroking her hand and face, and asking her to give him a ride home. Sound problematic? What if the bodybuilder, once alone in a car with her, starts caressing her leg and kissing her neck? "Just" misconduct? Not sexual harassment?

OP, we don't mean to browbeat or pile on you. TLS prides itself on being a welcoming community, and we're always happy to give advice to our members. But giving honest advice sometimes means giving unpleasant advice. It's not fun for us to deliver bad news (delivering good news, and being thanked by excited and grateful advice-seekers, is so much more uplifting and rewarding!), but we don't control whether the news is good or bad. It would be a disservice to the community if we were to only tell people what they want to hear.

I appreciate and receive your feedback. Another reason I’m struggling to grasp and come to terms with what happened is because I apologized to him several weeks later and he told me that for what it was worth, his opinion of me wasn’t limited to this one event, and that he’s disappointed we can’t work together but he knows I’ll be successful at whatever I do. So, being hit with words like harassment and assault is extremely hard and confusing for me because he didn’t make it sound like he saw it that way the last time we spoke. I understand that this may not or does not matter to a third party, but I just want to clarify my confusion with this situation.

[QContinuum]

I appreciate and receive your feedback. Another reason I’m struggling to grasp and come to terms with what happened is because I apologized to him several weeks later and he told me that for what it was worth, his opinion of me wasn’t limited to this one event, and that he’s disappointed we can’t work together but he knows I’ll be successful at whatever I do. So, being hit with words like harassment and assault is extremely hard and confusing for me because he didn’t make it sound like he saw it that way the last time we spoke. I understand that this may not or does not matter to a third party, but I just want to clarify my confusion with this situation.

So a few points. First, as LSAT Airbender notes, society in general has been slow to recognize the severity of sexual harassment/assault. Not too long ago, it was just "men being men" and women in the workforce were expected to accept it as par for the course. This is still an ongoing process today, and there continue to be men who get away with sexual harassment and assault every day.

Second, society has been even slower to accept that men can be victims too, particularly when it comes to female-on-male harassment. Large segments of the population continue to subscribe to the stereotype that men are promiscuous by nature, and always welcome female attention, and are thus "biologically incapable" of being sexually harassed (let alone assaulted) by women. So both of these factors could have worked in tandem to distort both your and your boss' perception of what you did.

All that said, I think that when you hire a C&F attorney (as cavalier rightly suggests that you do), it's worth discussing the idea of whether you or your attorney might approach your former boss to see if he'd be willing to write a letter of support for you. I have some reservations about this, so again my recommendation is that you discuss this with your C&F attorney. (To be clear, I do not recommend that you just go off and contact your former boss yourself.) But if your C&F attorney thinks it's a good idea (big if), and if you're indeed able to get that letter of support (second big if), then I imagine that would be very helpful to you. Imagine if, in an alternate universe, Clarence Thomas himself had disclosed harassing Anita Hill, but then Hill came forward with a letter of support for Thomas, saying that overall he was a great boss, and she was disappointed to no longer work with him, and she wished him all the best in his career. The entire thing would've been defused. Now, of course law school/bar C&F is not anywhere close to being comparable to SCOTUS confirmation proceedings, but the same basic logic applies.

[Francine.Frensky]

I appreciate and receive your feedback. Another reason I’m struggling to grasp and come to terms with what happened is because I apologized to him several weeks later and he told me that for what it was worth, his opinion of me wasn’t limited to this one event, and that he’s disappointed we can’t work together but he knows I’ll be successful at whatever I do. So, being hit with words like harassment and assault is extremely hard and confusing for me because he didn’t make it sound like he saw it that way the last time we spoke. I understand that this may not or does not matter to a third party, but I just want to clarify my confusion with this situation.

So a few points. First, as LSAT Airbender notes, society in general has been slow to recognize the severity of sexual harassment/assault. Not too long ago, it was just "men being men" and women in the workforce were expected to accept it as par for the course. This is still an ongoing process today, and there continue to be men who get away with sexual harassment and assault every day.

Second, society has been even slower to accept that men can be victims too, particularly when it comes to female-on-male harassment. Large segments of the population continue to subscribe to the stereotype that men are promiscuous by nature, and always welcome female attention, and are thus "biologically incapable" of being sexually harassed (let alone assaulted) by women. So both of these factors could have worked in tandem to distort both your and your boss' perception of what you did.

All that said, I think that when you hire a C&F attorney (as cavalier rightly suggests that you do), it's worth discussing the idea of whether you or your attorney might approach your former boss to see if he'd be willing to write a letter of support for you. I have some reservations about this, so again my recommendation is that you discuss this with your C&F attorney. (To be clear, I do not recommend that you just go off and contact your former boss yourself.) But if your C&F attorney thinks it's a good idea (big if), and if you're indeed able to get that letter of support (second big if), then I imagine that would be very helpful to you. Imagine if, in an alternate universe, Clarence Thomas himself had disclosed harassing Anita Hill, but then Hill came forward with a letter of support for Thomas, saying that overall he was a great boss, and she was disappointed to no longer work with him, and she wished him all the best in his career. The entire thing would've been defused. Now, of course law school/bar C&F is not anywhere close to being comparable to SCOTUS confirmation proceedings, but the same basic logic applies.

Thank you for your feedback. Would a C&F attorney be able to tell me if I should not even bother applying to law school?

[QContinuum]

Thank you for your feedback. Would a C&F attorney be able to tell me if I should not even bother applying to law school?

The C&F attorney should be able to tell you your rough odds of making it through bar C&F. If your odds are dicey, then you may wish to reconsider attending law school. Ideally, find a C&F attorney who formerly sat on the bar C&F committee themselves. They will also be able to advise you as to how to best present your disclosure (which could potentially include, as I described above, obtaining a letter of support from your former boss).

C&F standards vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so it's important that you consult a C&F attorney in the state where you wish to practice (i.e., if you wish to practice law in NY, don't consult a CA C&F attorney, even if you currently live in CA).