The history of stupid runs long and deep. Decisions made, actions taken, wars started, Kardashians put on television; humanity’s capacity for total idiocy has been demonstrated time and time again. To quote Voltaire (which I of course do on a daily basis, along with George Carlin and Homer Simpson): “The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.”
No culture is immune from the influence and effect of stupid, and the same can be said of every profession, including, without a doubt, the law. No attorney is immune from making the occasional boneheaded move, whether it be a poor strategic decision on a case or singing “Highway to Hell” on the karaoke machine during a firm holiday party (though at the time I thought I did a helluva job). But some actions are so cosmically stupid that they in and of themselves make Voltaire’s point.
I give you Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission Matter No. 6274702. As recently reported in the ABA Journal and the Legal Profession Blog , last week the Illinois Supreme Court approved the ARDC Hearing Board’s recommendation that a lawyer be suspended for one year for a couple of egregious ethics violations, one of which involved his search for a secretary. As is not uncommon, he started his search for secretarial assistance on Craigslist. As is not common, he posted his ad in the “Adult Gigs” section of the site.
The title of the post was innocuous enough, “Loop lawyers hiring secretary/legal assistant,” as was most of the ad itself:
“Loop law firm looking to hire am [sic] energetic woman for their open secretary/legal assistant position. Duties will include general secretarial work, some paralegal work and additional duties for two lawyers in the firm. No experience required, training will be provided. Generous annual salary and benefits will be provided, including medical, dental, life, disability, 401(k) etc.”
The ad got a little funky after that, when in addition to a resume, the lawyer asked for “a few pictures along with a description of your physical features, including measurements.” Not exactly asking about typing skills or familiarity with e-filing. Right there, we can see the moment of stupid inception.
In these tough economic times, it is no surprise that the ad elicited a couple of inquiries, including from one candidate who found the ad odd no doubt but presumed that the lawyer was just looking for an attractive secretary. Well, yes he was. He responded with an e-mail in which he kindly elaborated on the “additional duties” referred to in his ad:
As this is posted in the “adult gigs” section, in addition to the legal work, you would be required to have sexual interaction with me and my partner, sometimes together sometimes separate. This part of the job would require sexy dressing and flirtatious interaction with me and my partner, as well as sexual interaction. You will have to be comfortable doing this with us.
He also discussed the interview process as well as past difficulties he had with his office staff:
“…we’ve decided that as part of the interview process you’ll be required to perform for us sexually (i didn’t do this before with the other girls i hired, now i think i have to because they couldn’t handle it). Because that aspect is an integral part of the job, I think it’s necessary to see if you can do that, because it’ll predict future behavior of you being able to handle it when you have the job.”
Notwithstanding the 401(k) and health benefits, the candidate unsurprisingly declined the opportunity to interview for the position and immediately contacted the ARDC. The Hearing Board easily concluded that the lawyer “used his position of authority in an employment context in an inappropriate manner, which reflects poorly on the legal profession. “
Clearly, stupid is but one word to describe the foregoing conduct, and takes a back seat to unethical, sexist, offensive, unprofessional, disgusting, and shameful in the hierarchy of things that are wrong with this picture. But whichever adjective one uses to describe this behavior that “reflects poorly on the legal profession” and whether or not one agrees with the sanction imposed, the fact that the attorney saw no problem with posting a want ad looking for, basically, a prostitute who could put together an Excel spreadsheet is pretty mind-boggling.
Often, issues of ethics and professionalism raise complicated questions, involve shades of grey, and require serious thought and contemplation to resolve. Sometimes, however, all it takes to figure out whether a given action or decision is the right one is to ask: “Is this stupid?” If the aforementioned attorney had just asked himself that simple question, he might still be practicing law and still require secretarial assistance. Instead, he is likely putting up a Craigslist post looking for someone who wants to sublet some office space.
The cause of professionalism is no trivial pursuit for Dave, a former Jeopardy! champion. Before ILSCCP, Dave, a dad of two girls, husband of an amazing woman, and distant cousin of an 18th Century Moldavan vampire known as "Viktor the Clumsy," was a commercial litigator for 17 years, also specializing in trademarks and obtuse deposition questions.
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Dave, this provided a much needed morning laugh. Thank you, I really enjoy your writing. I’ll bookmark you and check back in on your blog when time permits in 2021 (I just had a baby girl 4 wks ago). Keep up the good work. Ryan
Ryan,
Glad you dig it. Congratulations on your daughter. As a father of 13 and 11 year old girls who were once babies themselves, I totally get where you’re coming from. Hang in there. — Dave Argentar
We learn about fire by getting burned or by being told convincingly of its effects. We learn what is and is not a social faux pas by committing same and suffering the sneers of our peers, or by taking a rigorous finishing school course. It is easy to laugh at this guy, but we all have areas of our lives in which we are cut off from mainstream experience and feedback, and those areas are growing, not shrinking, particularly for those of us who have had to leave the mainstream for an extended period of time in order to complete an education which can interfere more than a little with social pursuits. We have all met people for whom dollars seem to leap off the table, for whom others seem to want to provide, and for whom the underwear of strangers seems mystically to dissolve upon the exchange of a few words. From such a naturally insular point of view, it surely seems odd that the rest of us seem to invest so much time and energy in what should come so easily, and it must seem a natural extension of efficiency theory to combine profitable and personally-satisfying activities. With actual interaction on the decline in indirect proportion to the ability to connect electonically, and the word “friend” having come to mean someone who may or may not have actually met someone who has connected electronically with someone we may or may not have actually met, the mechanisms that reinforce our unifying ethos are disintegrating, and this is what we should address. The primitive notion that the world is divided into good people, who just naturally know right from wrong, and bad people, who do not, may make us feel superior until we, ourselves, are caught doing our out-of-the-mainstream thing, but it folds under very little scrutiny, and it impedes our ongoing social education by designating the process as pointless.
@David Harding
Wait a sec, are you actually defending this guy? And is your defense really that he just hadn’t learned any better yet? Really? Wax poetic about it all you like, but there is no one who has graduated from law school, passed the bar, and commenced practice who can credibly claim to be unaware that soliciting sex in exchange for a job is both stupid and wrong.
To answer your points in order: (1) Any lawyer who would cease to defend when ridiculed, sneered or presented with a “morally superior” argument should probably re-think the career choice; (2) it’s not a defense, but yes that is likely; (3) I think of myself as more prosaic than poetic, and; (4) the number of lawyers who have been relieved of their livelihoods for sexual predation would seem to indicate that “…passed the bar, and commenced practice…” offers little in the way of assurance.
It is common sense that is missing in this situation. We are intensely focused on other things, particularly getting educated, and then trying to earn a living in a world in which, even if we just barely make enough money to cover overhead, almost every person we deal with, including many who should know better, considers us over-paid. Such concerns can and do relegate the normal rules of interaction to a dangerously low position on the priority list.
I offered no defense, and no defense is detectable in what I wrote. What I offered was a likely explanation, and in that, a possible key to preventing future abuses of this type. While it may allow us a wonderfully satisfying sense of superiority to ridicule someone who has committed such an offense, ridicule makes both participants look foolish to disinterested observers and rarely changes a behavior. Understanding and addressing the cause is a much more promising approach.
And just so we are clear, most people would consider criticism offered anonymously to fall outside the mainstream. It may not appear so if one associates exclusively with those who do likewise, but then that is the problem, isn’t it?
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