Careers
Lawyer-Run Business Helps Attorneys and Others Arrange Discreet Affairs
Posted Jan 16, 2009 4:49 PM CST
By Martha Neil
Happily married but unhappy as a lawyer, Noel Biderman eventually found a career niche: helping others cheat on a spouse or romantic partner.
The business plan for his discreet dating site, the Ashley Madison Agency, was sparked when he realized that nearly a third of those using online dating services for singles were attached and seeking an affair, Legal Blog Watch recounts.
His service hence provides a positive benefit by giving those tempted to misrepresent themselves as single on dating sites an above-board alternative for finding sex partners, he argues.
A 1995 graduate of York University's Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Biderman now, as president and chief operating officer of Ashley Madison, uses his legal credentials as a punchline. "What I like to jokingly tell people critical of my current role is that my mother is finally proud of her son’s career," he recounts in a lengthy Bitter Lawyer question-and-answer session. "After all, I used to be a lawyer."
His also finds his skills at making a case are helpful for business marketing purposes.
In addition to being operated by a lawyer, Ashley Madison is also used by lawyers, the New York Post reports. A Post writer went undercover to meet clients of the agency. (Her online posting at the site reportedly elicited 544 e-mail responses in less than a week.)
Among those who responded was a lawyer who took her to lunch at a swanky steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan, recounts Post reporter Stefanie Cohen:
" 'Look, marriage is like a corporation,' Brad, a 43-year-old attorney, tells me. 'You have a budget, you have employees, and you have a business plan to keep it running smoothly. Sometimes you have to subcontract out the romance.' "
Attorneys and bankers are the largest professional groups among agency clients, Biderman tells Bitter Lawyer. He speculates that lawyers are particularly vulnerable to affairs because of their long, stressful days. If they then come home and feel unappreciated in the limited amount of time they spend with family, they are likely to seek appreciation elsewhere, he says.
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Comments
rick
Jan 16, 2009 6:28 PM CST
aba picked up piece. tell michael.
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Allen Sheketovits
Jan 17, 2009 7:02 PM CST
Oy! Just what we need. A place to fornicate. This is terrible. And a lawyer, no less running this? What has this world come to? How can we preserve the family unit when lawyers are encouraging fornication.
It is like Sodom and Gommora all over again. The next thing you know, we will all be turned to a pillar of SALT. Oy!
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BobDylan
Jan 18, 2009 12:27 PM CST
Wait- what does State and Local Tax have to do with anything?
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Sue the cheating pig
Jan 19, 2009 12:15 PM CST
I think non cheating spouse should be able to sue the cheating parties with some off the wall torts. Drag the cheaters through the mud and ruin their reputations in the community.
Isn’t marriage a contract so if one party intentionally interfers with your buisness relationship (i.e. a marriage) you should be able to sue for that plus emotional distress etc.
lol - not a contract lawyer so no clue what the torts would be.
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B. McLeod
Jan 20, 2009 1:13 AM CST
Sue, in some states, there used to be actions over this sort of thing, brought for “alienation of affection.” Like prosecutions for “adultery,” these have become increasingly rare in the modern age (wherein, Oscar Wilde would now be practically considered an uptight prude).
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Jake
Jan 20, 2009 1:38 PM CST
Read this interview on bitterlawyer.com. pretty interesting dude (for someone who started an infidelity website).
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Keith
Jan 23, 2009 6:48 AM CST
The ABA Journal has just stooped to a new low - writing an article about some who has prostituted his degree and helping to advertise more deceit by lawyers (against their wifes no less). This article is shameful but then, the ABA has no standards or morals, so why should I be shocked.
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Jason
Jan 23, 2009 8:04 AM CST
This is 2009 and under the new era of liberalisim and progressive idealogy, this is acceptable behavior. What’s the big deal. Judeo/Christian values no longer are welcome in America.
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Garp
Jan 23, 2009 8:13 AM CST
Re: Jason
Thank god.
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Hadley V. Baxendale
Jan 23, 2009 8:29 AM CST
Keith—don’t be a sexist. The lawyers are cheating on husbands, too. Women and men are equally bad when it comes to infidelity.
FTR I agree this article has no place in this magazine, especially its tone of gleefully accepting this enterprise as laudable. Sadly, it seems to fit.
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change
Jan 23, 2009 8:34 AM CST
No wonder our youth are having a hard time adjusting to the world around them. They have challenges in school, church, fitting in with their peers, parents that are dysfunctional and the leaders of the free world smearing their bad habits all over the News Media! It’s not all about me! But, that’s what this world has come to. No morals or apologies for this lewd behavior!
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anon
Jan 23, 2009 8:37 AM CST
Repulsive
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Bill
Jan 23, 2009 8:46 AM CST
Who says lawyers don’t contribute to society?
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T
Jan 23, 2009 8:50 AM CST
I beg to differ. Christian values are welcomed by many even if not embraced by all. There must be standards of conduct and behavior. If that’s not true, then why are we practicing law?
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James Pollock
Jan 23, 2009 9:30 AM CST
I have bad news for Jason… people have been cheating on their spouses since way before 2009 (and not just liberal people, either!) “Judeo/Christian” values have allowed powerful men to have more than one sex partner for a very long time (Ever hear of Solomon? Did he have “Judeo/Christian values”? (OK, he’s before Christ, so he might just be “Judeo”, but the Christians kept him in the Bible.)
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Stone
Jan 23, 2009 9:30 AM CST
You’re practicing law for money and some imaginary ideal of justice.
It’s evolution. You might not like it, but don’t pull the “we’re better than that..” line. It’s weak and untrue.
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Why are we practicing law?
Jan 23, 2009 9:32 AM CST
#13: “...why are we practicing law?”
Good question. For many of us, it’s because we know that morals and standards are required for a society to be successful.
But for so many of our peers, including those who have no problem with this article, the lawyer is seen as a way to bring down any moral code or system. This is why so many of our peers have a bug up their…ummm….nostril when it comes to “church and state.”
*SIGH*
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Ryan
Jan 23, 2009 9:38 AM CST
Not the most ethical thing to do. But from the comments of some people on this site, it is almost like they believe adultery is a modern invention.
There is a reason why it is a commandment, because people did it all the time! Just like lying, stealing, swearing, etc.
However, I’d expect that in the past, people were more likely to have long term mistresses/lovers then short flings with other married folk.
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Anon
Jan 23, 2009 9:44 AM CST
Hilarious. Good thing he is a lawyer, becasue he’ll be spending a lot of time responding to subpoenas in divorce cases.
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James Pollock
Jan 23, 2009 10:01 AM CST
A lifelong commitment was a different contract entirely back when life expectancy hovered around 35, and the spousal candidates available to pick from included only those within walking distance of your home… Since cheating on one’s spouse merited two different Commandments (Ryan, you forgot about not coveting, and the Commandments followed directly from God’s displeasure at the actions of the Israelites, there *must* have been a lot of cheating back then, too. Of course, that same “non-coveting” Commandment also prohibits tortious interference in Employment, and lawyers have been involved in that area for a very, very long time, too.
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Morris
Jan 23, 2009 10:07 AM CST
Marriage licensing needs to be privatized anyway, allowing greater freedom to contract then typically recognized by religion or state, and, thereby allowing more of us to find peace with this reporting.
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RFF
Jan 23, 2009 10:11 AM CST
And ths story warrants publication in the ABA journal because…..???
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J.D.
Jan 23, 2009 10:13 AM CST
#13: The reason we need more and more laws—and more and more attorneys—is because sadly morals are not enough to keep people in line anymore. There was a time when society was more concerned about how they would be judged by God, and THAT helped people to make decisions. We didn’t need new legislation telling us how to behave.
But now that the ACLU is working overtime to erase God and religion generally, the only authority of what is right and wrong is slowly becoming the state. Many people now simply make their decisions on whether or not they can hide from the law.
It’s a sad devolution of society in many regards. Who wants Congress to be the supreme authority figure? The founding fathers certainly did not. That’s why they viewed this nation beneath God; they also wanted to make sure that no politician could assume the role of God, or claim to be anointed by God as the kings from Old Europe always did.
But for many today, Government has become God. Very scary. Just look at all the idolatry from this past week.
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Jeff
Jan 23, 2009 10:25 AM CST
Looks like a venue where our cheaters may be extorted from to protect marriage (if there really is one considering their actions), career, reputation, etc . . . .
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Andy the Lawyer
Jan 23, 2009 11:05 AM CST
Responding to # 23—JD, which God did you have in mind? There are so many.
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EAH
Jan 23, 2009 11:37 AM CST
I’m copying this article and the comments for my Professional Responsibility class ... Model Rule 8.4, where are you?
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mohammed
Jan 23, 2009 12:31 PM CST
in 20 years america will be ruled by sharia law and this behavior will be a thing of the past.
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Michael
Jan 23, 2009 12:33 PM CST
Responding to #25- Andy: There are many false gods but only one God- the Creator, the Great I AM. For the first 180 something years of our nation’s existence, there was no real debate over which deity we referred to as God.
As an attorney and theology grad, I have to lament the demise of our moral and legal system. The new congressional welcome center certainly reflects our post Christian government by completely snowing our religious heritage. We are a nation who has lost her identity and out of touch with our heritage.
Now would be a good time for us to recognize that humanism and political correctness are destroying our morals, our identities, our nation, and even our very identity. I quote Linclon’s proclamation establishing a National Day of Prayer: “Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
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Michael
Jan 23, 2009 12:38 PM CST
Correction to #28- Last paragraph, first sentence I intended:
Now would be a good time for us to recognize that humanism and political correctness are destroying our morals, our identities, our nation, and even our very souls.
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Ted Haggard
Jan 23, 2009 12:58 PM CST
I agree Michael. It’s true, we Christians are the morally, socially, and politically superior form of life.
[Anyone know where I can score some meth and a male prostitute?]
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Diderot
Jan 23, 2009 1:00 PM CST
Last time I checked, the founders were pretty big into the French englightment thinkers. You know, the ones who observed:
“Man will not be free until the last king is strangled by the entrails of the last priest.”
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Ted again
Jan 23, 2009 1:00 PM CST
Never mind, I’m completely recovered now.
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Jimmy G
Jan 23, 2009 1:08 PM CST
I love this guy! Is he hiring. ” What we are saying is that if you have decided to step outside of your relationship, don’t have an affair at work and risk losing your job as well, don’t go on a singles-dating site and lie about your marital status, and don’t break the law and seek out a prostitute. ” If you read the full interview at bitterlawyer.com it’s pretty damn funny. Or just plain old sad. Not sure which.
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Clint
Jan 23, 2009 1:30 PM CST
Last time I checked, the founders were pretty big into the French englightment thinkers. You know, the ones who observed:
“Man will not be free until the last king is strangled by the entrails of the last priest.”
“big into” and “Sold On” are two different things.
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here.” - Patrick Henry
“I am a Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator and, I hope, to the pure doctrine of Jesus also.” - Thomas Jefferson
“It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supporters. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” - George Washington
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James Pollock
Jan 23, 2009 1:42 PM CST
“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar, render unto me what is mine” - a pretty strong argument for separation of Church and State, wouldn’t you think? People who are secure in their religious beliefs usually don’t have to worry about what other people are doing.
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Carol
Jan 23, 2009 1:45 PM CST
What a sad day for the legal profession when we laud this kind of endeavor. Why be married if you’re going to be a cheat? The stress of your job isn’t any more of an excuse to commit adultery as it is to beat your wife or children. Those of you who belittle the Christian basis of our country are the very ones hell-bent on destroying it in the name of “progress.”
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diderot
Jan 23, 2009 1:47 PM CST
Clint: Touche! Btu I expect no less from an attorney theologian marshalling his cause. But I take all words from politicans with a grain of salt, even though our founders they may be. It is also thanks to Jefferson that we have a separation between Church and State.
I take it that your essential argument is that there can be no morality without strict adherence to Jesus and the Bible? Shouldn’t our secular laws, made in a country that respects freedom of religion, forswear those questions that deal only with the soul? Would you prefer that adultery result in prison terms?
After all, Mr. Henry would not seem to prefer such a secular codification. “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”
The genius of our system is that it should let people pursue their own lives and interests, even if those interests be adultery. The case against it can be made from the pulpit (quite easily), but should not be made by the truncheon of the constabulary.
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Kalifornia Arnold
Jan 23, 2009 2:24 PM CST
Sort of gives a whole new meaning to “laying down the law”
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Michael
Jan 23, 2009 3:03 PM CST
The principle behind so called separation of church and state was not to secularize our government and remove any reference, recognition, or reliance upon God. It was rather to protect free exercise of religion. It was to preserve the citizen’s freedom to worship whatever and however they choose. But it was not to impede or remove God or Christianity from our government.
While the founding fathers were influenced by French Revolutionary philosophers, they generally eschewed the secularism the French Revolution embraced. They took the only the good - the casting off aristocracy and clueless government- and rejected the bad - the godless humanism that still plagues France. Instead of the French secular approach, our founders opted for a theological one. The Declaration of Independence justified the break with English rule on the basis of God’s created order. The monarchy had trampled on the basic God-given rights of the colonists, therefore had the right to cast off the tyranny and establish a new government that respected and protected those divine principles.
If you don’t understand or get that, you are a victim of revisionist historians who have attempted to erase the truth about America’s founding and secularize the events surrounding the birth of our nation. You might think you are well-informed but in truth you have been short-changed by secular educators who make it their goal to make the American populace ignorant atheists who will not oppose the denationalization of our country. We are closer to this now than ever being that we have a president who doesn’t want to salute our flag or sing our National Anthem.
However, the truth cannot be hidden. Just read our primary documents and the writings of the founding fathers. It’s really rather obvious what they believed and why they established the government they did. The fallout we are seeing today is the result of our lost identity. Our nation is being rapidly redefined as a secular, godless nation, but that is not who we are (or were anyway). I’m not sure we can survive the reconstruction going on at the foundational level. God, have mercy on us.
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Clint
Jan 23, 2009 3:09 PM CST
Diderot:
Which ‘separation of church and state’ are you referring to?
Is it the one that existed until 1943, whereby those in power could still acknowledge the concept of a creator and the divine providence which brought so many inteligent and gifted individuals together at the right time and place to create a system of government that would be the envy of all other nations of the world as they lead a nation of laws that would not have been possible without the firm grounding in a moral system that could not exist without a judeo-christian anchor, or the ‘separation of church and state’ post 1943, whereby a group of unelected individuals seized upon a specious interpretation of a remark made in correspondence and placed it at the head of a secular crusade to exile the nation’s common religion from the public square where it had so long resided. The complete denial of the Christian Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States which is so in vogue these days has brought upon us the rule of law made entirely by man, which stated sucinctly, is a law forever morphing based on the current desires of an untamed heart. Once you accept the premise of man as the ultimate authority when you create the laws he is to live under, you surrender to the ultimate tyranny of the least restrained among us. It is no way to ensure a nation worth having to as yet unborn generations, nor is it fullfilling the duty we are entrusted with as practioners of the law.
I don’t believe that we should be treating adultery as a crime, but the denial of it as a destructive behavior, and society’s comportment with it as a consequence-free course of action is injurious to the very fabric of society and it is hypicritical of our profession to pretend otherwise. Since we banished God from the public square and public discourse, shame died alone, and removed any impediments standing between the ability to do something and actually doing it, and we are the poorer for it.
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Michael
Jan 23, 2009 3:23 PM CST
To # 35, Mr. Pollock- Jesus’ render unto Caesar statement wasn’t a statement about separation of church and state but rather one about being a good dual citizen- a citizen of the earthly kingdom where God has placed you and a citizen of the divine kingdom to which all men are subject. Jesus’ statement here essentially confirms that He did not come to usurp earthly government, as the Jews thought the Messiah would. He came to declare the kingdom of heaven and to secure redemption (citizenship in God’s kingdom) by His own blood. He made this statement to religious leaders who were attempting to expose him as a revolutionary opposing the Roman rule of the day. However, he was not what they supposed, so his answer both startled and stifled them.
BTW, NT Christians are taught to submit to earthly government because it is ordained by God. It logically follows that the best government is government that acknowledges God and coordinates its law with his natural and revealed law. A government that truly acknowledges it only has authority to rule because God has ordained it is far less likely to abuse its subjects and overstep its boundaries.
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akman
Jan 23, 2009 3:28 PM CST
in today’s world cheating is relative…you are making your marriage stronger by getting what you are not getting at home…you come home happy and satisfied to the spouse
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Clint
Jan 23, 2009 3:34 PM CST
in today’s world cheating is relative…you are making your marriage stronger by getting what you are not getting at home…you come home happy and satisfied to the spouse
If you don’t work through the tough stuff within the marriage together, then how do you know that there is any committment when all there is tough stuff outside the marriage pressiuring it?ough stuff
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Maria
Jan 23, 2009 3:44 PM CST
So dishonesty is the way to make a marriage or any partnership work? If someone wants to mess around, fine, but have the courtesy to let the other person know so they can do it also - some people won’t break a promise unless there is a mutual agreement so the cheaters are just keeping their spouse in the dark so they can “have their cake and eat it too.” I find the dishonesty dispicable No one is forced to stay in an unhappy marriage. Have the cojones to admit it and get it over with.
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Diederot
Jan 23, 2009 4:55 PM CST
Clint:
Until God comes down and starts passing and enforcing the laws, then man is the ultimate arbiter of the laws that man creates. Man tries not to legislate the afterlife, and God leaves man to create law on earth.
For all the talk of God being banished from the public square, I seem to recall the inaguaration opening and closing with prayer, the luncheon opening with prayer, and then the next day everyone started it out at the National Cathedral in prayer service.
Asking schools not to enforce one religion is not a banishment of religion. It is affording people the freedom to worship as they wish on their own time, instead of compelling others to worship creeds they do not adhere to on the government time and dime.
Civil Instituions are civil institutions. Opened with a benediction, but then relentlessly focused on earthly things.
What did the founders do to codify your alleged “christian character of civil institutions?” Nothing except offer praises for Jesus. And doing the alternative is not a good way to gain office in this country…
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Rocco
Jan 23, 2009 5:52 PM CST
Now I know why lately I’ve seen several judges who were once crabasses on the bench, now come to work with big smiles on their faces. Ashely Madison rocks!!!
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Carol
Jan 23, 2009 6:05 PM CST
diederot:
What is the basis of all law? Did man one day wake up and decide we shouldn’t steal or kill? No. They are derived from the 10 Commandments. Upholding these laws is our Christian duty as God is one who handed them down. Like it our not, western civilization and law was founded on Judeo-Christian principles as laid out in the Bible.
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Paul the Magyar
Jan 23, 2009 6:47 PM CST
A few observations:
1. Whatever his motivation and justification, the creator of such a site is immoral and a poor example of a lawyer. What is permitted and what is appropriate are, in this case and so often in other cases, two different things.
2. “The Declaration of Independence justified the break with English rule on the basis of God’s created order.” The Declaration of Independence observed that the colonies had separated from England by natural law (“Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”)—just as an apple separates from a tree. This language satisfied both religionists and non-religionists.
3. “We are closer to this now than ever being that we have a president who doesn’t want to salute our flag or sing our National Anthem.” What a sad thing that a commentator here should repeat scurrilous smears as though these were truths. This is not conservatism, it is simply low politics.
4. Religion is often used as a weapon to enforce a certain order of things. The fundamentalists or any religion wish to impose their values on others for the “best of reasons” which are always inimical to another’s values. One cannot inject religion into a secular arena without selecting a particular religion to inject. If relgion is so important and central to one’s life, one has ample opportunity to inject it into one’s affairs without coopting or forcing government to facilitate the effort. True religionists have no reason to fear the secular state which protects all religions equally. Secular preference for a belief system IS coercive in that one cannot select one’s government as one can select one’s religion. Please get over the “God has abandoned us because we have abandoned Him” schtick. Jesus did not play that tune, but focused on making people neighbors and treating them as one treats oneself.
5. Do not lie, cheat, steal, kill—these are precepts common to all the prominent religions and need not be recognized as “religious” to understand their truth and value to mankind as imankind organizes and functions in societies.
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James Pollock
Jan 23, 2009 6:54 PM CST
Carol, I believe most historians of law start with the Code of Hammurabi, not the ten Commandments. And democracy was born in Greece, also not Christian. Making (and enforcing) Christian “laws” is the job of the Church, not the government. (Leaving aside the fact that Christians are no more united than Americans are on what the law should be.) If you want to go to Church, and decide that no one can eat shellfish or shave, fine… but it’s a different story when you start telling other people that they can’t, either. It is the height of absurdity to claim that other people cannot be moral if they worship differently. For whatever reason, He choose not to immediately strike down those who stray from His path. Perhaps because He has other things to do, perhaps as a test to us all, perhaps because we do not correctly understand the instructions He has given us (the Bible has been translated and interpreted over thousands of years… often in support of both sides of a dispute.)
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Caroline
Jan 23, 2009 9:33 PM CST
This is despicable, it’s no wonder people hate lawyers so much. It seems the morals of the profession really have gone out the window, and all that’s left are strictly professional ethics.
I see the reasoning behind wanting people to be above-board instead of misrepresenting themselves as single, but to start a business and make a profit off of that definitely crosses the line of decency.
And Brad who’s 43… I feel such sadness for your wife, because you are clearly cold and heartless. Marriage = a corporation? What a terrible analogy!!
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