chevron-down Created with Sketch Beta.
    December 23, 2024

    Bullying in the Legal Profession

    Study Finds Bullying Disproportionately Impacts Lawyers from Underrepresented Groups

    The topic of bullying is personal to Erika Harold, Executive Director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism (“the Commission”). “I experienced pervasive racial and sexual harassment in high school that went unresolved by school administrators. I ultimately had to transfer schools,” she said. Harold added, “In a diary I kept at the time, I vowed to make an impact on the culture of bullying if I ever had the opportunity.” 

    That opportunity came when she was crowned Miss America 2003. Traveling across the U.S., she spoke to more than 100,000 young people about bullying in schools to “shift people’s perceptions and motivate leaders to take this issue more seriously.”

    After graduating from Harvard Law School, Harold was dismayed to discover that bullying seemed “normalized and even sometimes celebrated in the legal profession.” Yet, “there was a lack of data and discussion about it,” she said. 

    A second opportunity presented itself when she became Executive Director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism. Under her leadership, the Commission launched one of the first large-scale studies in the U.S. on bullying in the legal profession. They partnered with The Red Bee Group, a Chicago-based consulting firm with experience conducting wide-scale surveys for other legal organizations, including the ABA. The report’s authors and principals from The Red Bee Group, Stephanie A. Scharf and Roberta D. Liebenberg, define bullying as “inappropriate behavior intended to intimidate, humiliate, or control the actions of another person, including verbal, nonverbal, or physical acts.” 

    The resulting report found that nearly a quarter of the 6,000 Illinois lawyers surveyed had experienced workplace bullying during a one-year period. Particularly noteworthy, the rates of bullying were highest among attorneys aged 25 to 35, female attorneys, and attorneys with disabilities. Thirty-nine percent of attorneys aged 25 to 35 reported having experienced bullying compared to 12% of attorneys aged 66 to 75. Thirty-eight percent of female attorneys said they experienced bullying, compared to 15% of male lawyers. Similarly, 38% of attorneys with disabilities said they experienced bullying, compared to 23% of lawyers without a disability. 

    Also bullied were 36% of Middle Eastern/North African lawyers, 35% of Black/African American lawyers, 34% of Hispanic lawyers, 32% of multiracial lawyers, and 28% of Asian American lawyers, compared to 23% of white lawyers who reported being bullied. In addition, 29% of lawyers who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual were the target of verbal bullying related to their sexual orientation, while 3% of heterosexual lawyers were verbally bullied related to their sexual orientation.

    Wendy Shiba, Chair of the ABA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Center (DEI Center) and a principal of The Red Bee Group, pointed out that the groups identified in the report as being disproportionately impacted by bullying are the same groups represented by the ABA’s DEI Center “in furtherance of Goal III, to eliminate bias and enhance diversity in the legal profession.” Based on her work, Shiba added, “Intersectionality compounds the phenomenon, with attorneys having two or more of the underrepresented characteristics being especially vulnerable.”

    Teresa Schmid, who directs the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility, stated that bullying in the legal profession is important to the Center, “as [it is] unethical conduct that is harmful to the administration of justice and to the public. Bullying can violate several of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. For example, bullying that can be proven to be based on a protected class violates Rule 8.4(g), which identifies professional misconduct as lawyers who “engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.”

    Harold noted, however, that bullying that is not based on a protected characteristic or which cannot be proven to be based on such a characteristic would not be encompassed by anti-harassment and antidiscrimination provisions, thereby leaving many bullied attorneys without recourse. “That a lot of bullying falls outside of the scope of most anti-harassment and antidiscrimination rules and policies and therefore goes unaddressed underscores the importance of research and recommendations focused specifically on bullying,” she said.

    Bullying has serious consequences for both the bullied attorney and the employer, the report reveals. Fifty-four percent of respondents who were bullied in the past year experienced a negative change in their emotional well-being, 39% felt less productive at work, and 20% experienced a decline in physical health.

    Moreover, 18% of all survey respondents had left a job practicing law due to bullying. Lawyers from traditionally underrepresented groups were more likely to leave a legal job due to bullying. For example, 28% of women have left a legal job due to bullying compared to 10% of men, and 28% of lawyers with a disability have left a legal job due to bullying compared to 17% of lawyers without a disability. 

    Additionally, 52% of lawyers who reported the bullying incident to their employer rated their employer’s response as either “not sufficient” or “totally unsatisfactory.” Liebenberg and Scharf wrote in the report that “while there are steps that individual lawyers can take when they are being bullied, the ultimate responsibility for preventing bullying rests not on those who are bullied but rather on those with the power to set and enforce policies in workplaces, courtrooms, and conference rooms across Illinois.” “Leaders must implement anti-bullying policies that have meaningful sanctions for individuals who violate them,” Liebenberg added in an interview. 

    To address this seldom-discussed but troubling issue of bullying in the legal profession, the report shares five core recommendations: 

    1. The creation, implementation, and enforcement of anti-bullying policies in legal workplaces.

    2. Training specific to these anti-bullying policies in legal workplaces as well as bullying prevention education and training in law schools.

    3. The development and enforcement of anti-bullying standards in courtrooms and litigation activities. 

    4. The creation of programs by bar associations that “educate members on the prevalence and impact of bullying in the legal profession.”

    5. An approach and response from lawyers who are bullied that they believe “best safeguards their rights, well-being, and career.” 

    The Commission on Professionalism is already taking action to advance the recommendations outlined in its report, Harold said. It is currently developing an online educational module that will “encompass concrete strategies lawyers can employ whether they are being bullied, witness bullying as a bystander, or are responsible for crafting and enforcing policies in the workplace.” The module will be available to all lawyers and leaders of legal workplaces in early 2025. Moreover, the Commission is conducting trainings for judges regarding practical ways to prevent and address bullying in their courtrooms and other aspects of litigation and is updating its statewide lawyer-to-lawyer mentoring program curriculum to include strategies new and more experienced lawyers can utilize to address bullying.

    The Commission also welcomes an ongoing dialogue with law firms, legal leaders, and others who may want to learn more or apply the research in their work. “Based on the data, it is clear that legal workplaces without appropriate anti-bullying policies are more likely to lose the talents of female lawyers, lawyers with a disability, LGBTQ+ lawyers, and lawyers of color due to workplace bullying,” Harold said. “Not only is this an injustice to the lawyers who are being bullied, but it undermines the culture of the legal profession, limits legal organizations’ ability to effectively serve clients from diverse backgrounds and communities, inhibits the creativity and success of legal teams, and undermines the public’s confidence in the legal profession,” she added.

    In 2019, the International Bar Association published the last large-scale bullying study titled, “Us Too,” which was followed by its “Beyond Us Too” recommendations in 2022. The 2019 study found that bullying is rife in legal workplaces across the world, affecting 1 in 2 female respondents and 1 in 3 male respondents. In some countries, including Canada and Australia, respondents reported especially high rates of bullying.

    Stefanie Costi, an Australian anti-bullying lawyers, said that while there have been some developments in Australia since the report and recommendations, the anti-bullying polices since implement by law firms and legal organizations are often “superficial.” “There is still a pervasive culture of silence, especially when it comes to speaking out against bullies,” she said. Costi added that she was not surprised by the findings in the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism’s 2024 report and hopes for a “profession-wide reckoning.” “The real question is whether the profession is willing to confront its own deeply embedded biases and power structures. It is time for legal institutions to stop paying lip service to inclusivity and actually take responsibility for the cultures they perpetuate,” she said.