By Julia Reischel
julia.reischel@lawyersweekly.com
A former first-year associate at Bingham McCutchen is alleging that she was drugged at the Boston firm's Christmas party in a complaint filed yesterday with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In the complaint, Michelle A. Moor, who joined the firm in September 2007, also alleges that another unnamed female employee of Bingham had been drugged and raped after associating with co-workers, and that a litigation specialist at the firm once told a table of Bingham associates at a restaurant that he "enjoyed having sex with women ... who were unconscious." He also allegedly said that he "knew how to get 'roofies,'" or date-rape drugs.
According to the complaint, after Moor reported the incidents to the firm, "Bingham failed to take steps to ensure Ms. Moor's safety." This "failure to investigate and take prompt and adequate remedial action," the complaint alleges, "constitute[s] sex discrimination."
When reached by telephone, Moor, who left Bingham in February and is now a litigator at Kotin, Crabtree & Strong in Boston, declined to comment. According to her bio on Kotin, Crabtree's website, she graduated from Northeastern University School of Law in 2007 and specializes in special education law, employment litigation and general litigation.
Moor's lawyer, Rachel N.C. Stroup of Zalkind, Rodriguez, Lunt & Duncan in Boston, told Lawyers Weekly that Moor "has filed this complaint with the hope that Bingham will explore serious workplace problems." She added that Moor's experience at Bingham has been "seriously disillusioning and upsetting" for Moor.
In a statement, Bingham spokeswoman Claire Papanastasiou said "there is no merit to the claims" and that the firm took Moor's reports of her alleged drugging "extremely seriously."
"The filing speaks of the report received by the firm that Ms. Moor unknowingly ingested a drug at a holiday party sponsored by the firm in a public setting," the firm's statement reads. "The firm believes that at all times it acted diligently, responsibly and fairly in connection with information it received, including gathering relevant facts and conducting an appropriate and thorough investigation. The safety of our lawyers and staff is of paramount concern to our firm. In connection with its investigation, the firm was unable to determine who had done this or whether the source of the drug was associated with the firm in any way."
The statement goes on to report that Bingham is instituting a "safety-training program" for its staff in response to the incident.
The seven-page MCAD complaint, which was sent to multiple newspapers yesterday evening, states that on Dec. 14, 2007, Moor attended the firm's annual holiday party for associates at Lucia, a North End restaurant. Allegedly, after her second glass of wine, she felt "dazed and extremely disoriented." At an emergency room that evening, the complaint says, a blood test revealed that she had ingested Tegretol, an anti-seizure medication that causes memory loss when taken with alcohol.
After the incident, another Bingham associate allegedly told Moor that she had been drugged and raped by a Bingham employee the year before, but that she had not reported the incident to the firm.
On Dec. 20, according to the complaint, Moor reported both incidents to the firm's human resources department and asked that the firm warn other female associates.
A month later, on Jan. 17, according to the complaint, Moor attended a dinner at a restaurant with fellow Bingham employees, one of whom, a litigation specialist who worked on the same floor as Moor, made "a number of alarming sexually inappropriate comments" about "roofies" and having sex with unconscious women. The employee's comments allegedly indicated to Moor that he "may have been the person who drugged her and may have intended to rape her while she was unconscious."
Moor allegedly reported the incident to Bingham the following Monday and the next day repeated her request that the firm warn other female employees. According to the complaint, while the firm investigated the incident, "nearly two weeks passed in which Ms. Moor did not hear anything further[.]" Allegedly, during that time, Moor saw the employee who had made the comments on a daily basis, which made her feel "unsafe in her workplace."
On Feb. 4, the complaint states that Moor told the management at Bingham that she did not feel safe working near the employee and was told in response that she could move her office to a different floor so that she did not have to work near him. The complaint claims that the proposed move from the 19th floor "general litigation floor" to the "broker-dealer floor" two stories below would have "materially altered Ms. Moor's working conditions" and forced Moor to "choose between pursuing her career in the general litigation group and her safety." Moor decided to remain on the 19th floor, but remained "frightened," until Feb. 21, when she was notified that the employee who had made the remarks "no longer worked for Bingham," a decision which the complaint says was "long overdue."
According to the complaint, Moor's "enormous discomfort" after the incident "compelled [her to] leave the firm and work elsewhere"; when she received an offer of employment from another employer in February, she accepted. The decision "brings with it substantial economic consequences," the complaint states. Allegedly, Bingham only issued a notice to other employees about the incident after Moor resigned.
The complaint indicates that Bingham informed her that, while she was employed at the firm, she signed an agreement stating that any disputes related to her employment would be "resolved exclusively through final and binding arbitration," and that therefore she "cannot sue the firm in court."
"We don't believe that it will be a problem," Stroup, Moor's lawyer, said about the arbitration agreement. "We expect that may be something that they will bring up." MLW
Click here to view a Bingham McCutchen internal memo.
Click here to view the press release and complaint.
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