When Lauri Rollings moved from San Francisco back to Milwaukee and accepted an associate position at a midsize law firm, she expected a certain amount of stress. She was, after all, a litigator.

But she was blindsided by the bullying she encountered. One partner, Rollings says, would summon Rollings to her office to berate her and complain about her failure to do specific parts of an assignment when the instructions hadn't been very clear.

"There was this one partner in particular who was hostile and aggressive and dressed me down," Rollings says. "It felt like she was setting me up to fail."

Even worse, Rollings says, was that other lawyers in the firm knew the partner was a bully, but "nobody did anything about it."

Rollings says she then went to another firm, where she experienced yet another partner with a reputation for bullying whom nobody seemed to confront. She ended up experiencing anxiety, depression, insomnia, heart pain and low self-esteem–all of which made it harder to do her work.

"People in law firms need to understand that bullying shouldn't be ignored or allowed," says Rollings, who now advises organizations about appropriate leadership and bullying prevention. Change "starts with an awareness that this is happening," she adds.

Rollings' experience with bullying at law firms is considered somewhat commonplace in the legal industry, and it can have serious consequences. A 2024 bullying study commissioned by the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism surveyed 6,000 lawyers in the state and found that 24% had been bullied at work the preceding year. According to Bullying in the Legal Profession: A Study of Illinois Lawyers' Experiences and Recommendations for Change, 38% of female lawyers had been bullied at work in the past year, compared with 15% of male lawyers. The data was compiled by the Red Bee Group, a consulting firm.

Some consultants say the study reinvigorated the debate within the legal industry about what behavior is appropriate in the professional world, and both employers and bar associations are again discussing how best to encourage a healthy workplace culture.

"There's just such a long track record of law firms and the legal industry in general not taking bullying seriously," says Liane Davey, an organizational psychologist who consults with businesses and law firms about teamwork and effective management. "We know that legal employers need to address bullying, and the workers deserve to feel safe and be free from harm. We all know there's more work to be done."

Before workplace bullying can be addressed on a firmwide basis, Davey says, there must be a common definition of what it is and what it isn't. "We also know that legal work requires teamwork, so we also need to learn how to communicate criticism and disagreement, to have conflict and uncomfortable situations without it being labeled as bullying," she adds.

In working with law firms and businesses on conflict resolution and teamwork, Davey has noticed that some individuals are easily triggered and quick to interpret an uncomfortable conversation or behavior as a personal attack. But, she adds, teamwork and innovation require, at times, disagreement and different ways of communicating.

"We can hold two truths at once," Davey says. “There can be horrible behavior that needs to be addressed, and at the same time, there can also be people who are unwilling to tolerate any discomfort at all.”

In the report, bullying is defined as "inappropriate behavior intended to intimidate, humiliate or control the actions of another person, including verbal, nonverbal or physical acts." It found that the most common types of bullying reported were verbal intimidation, such as insults; name-calling or shouting; harsh, belittling or excessive criticism of work; demeaning nonverbal behaviors; and imposing unrealistic work demands.

The Workplace Bullying Institute, an organization dedicated to the eradication of the problem, defines bullying as "repeated, health-harming mistreatment by one or more employees of an employee: abusive conduct that takes the form of verbal abuse; or behaviors perceived as threatening, intimidating, or humiliating; work sabotage; or in some combination of the above."

When creating law firm or business policies, everyone involved must be working with the same definition of bullying, says Anne Cortina Perry, a partner in the New York City office of Jenner & Block and co-chair of the firm's Culture Risk and Sensitive Investigations practice.

"It's important to have diverse perspectives in terms of what your firm or business culture is and should be," she says. "There may be people in your workplace who view their behavior as encouraging, whereas someone else would say that it is not encouraging, but bullying."

One issue is that lawyers aren't particularly good at examining their own behavior and whether they are hurting other people, says Tish Vincent, a clinical social worker and attorney.

"Their skill set for zealous advocacy can keep them arguing, even when they might be wrong," says Vincent, immediate past chair of the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs.

On the other hand, Davey says, it's important to remind lawyers that conflict is part of human nature.

"Having conflict, getting critical feedback, being challenged–all of that is part of a vibrant, innovative, high-quality law firm," Davey says. “We need to be able to have uncomfortable conversations without feeling unsafe.”

Workplace bullying can also lead to violence from both the accused and accuser, says John Wyman, a director at Control Risks, a security and risk assessment consultancy firm.

"Employers have a duty of care to try and mitigate the potential for violence that can stem from conflict, especially in the high-pressure environment of a law firm," Wyman says.

According to Wyman, an employee who bullies and has not been reined in by management can become more abusive and aggressive, potentially posing a physical risk to others. Meanwhile, an individual who has been bullied can pose a risk of violence after being pushed too far and feeling humiliated, Wyman adds.

To ensure safety and to reduce liability exposure in the event of a violent incident, Wyman says, employers need to be able to show they had measures and programs in place that were preventative as well as responsive, "conforming to a reasonable duty of care."

Best practices, Wyman says, include a threat management protocol and a system for employees to report concerns.

"A threat assessment will recognize that both the person who bullies and the person who has been bullied are potentially a problem," he explains.

Additionally, employers should have a system for flagging potential behavioral issues early and managing them, Wyman says.

He adds that employees should know to whom to report concerning behavior, including bullying, and know that their report will be taken seriously.

While there's no federal law specifically prohibiting bullying other than for people in protected classes, states such as Connecticut and California have passed laws to help ensure employers provide sexual harassment prevention training.

Also, lawyers "have a duty to observe the applicable rules of professional conduct, which require lawyers to treat everyone respectfully, including each other," says Teresa Schmid, director of the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility.

Specifically, Rule 8.4(g) of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct states that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination based on 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.

There has been some criticism of this amendment to Rule 8.4, which was adopted by the ABA House of Delegates in 2016. In 2024, the New York City-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that two lawyers who challenged Connecticut's version of this rule did have standing to sue on the basis that their statements about religious freedom and critical race theory might be banned under the rule.

In 2023, the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed a lawsuit that argued Pennsylvania's version of the rule violated the First Amendment. It was brought by a lawyer who thought his continuing legal education presentations could be interpreted as harassment or discrimination under the ethics rule.

Meanwhile, lawyers continue to engage in efforts to stop bullying in the profession. The ABA Young Lawyers Division recently passed a resolution at its midyear assembly to encourage bar associations and legal employers throughout the country to study and address bullying and lawyer wellness concerns.

"Bullying does not exist in a vacuum," says Kenneth A. Matuszewski, chair of the Chicago Bar Association's Young Lawyer Section and a member of the ABA Young Lawyers Division. “We think addressing the issue of stress is an important part of addressing bullying.”

Matuszewski, an intellectual property litigator, says he experienced workplace bullying at a prior legal employer. He says his supervisor liked creating "little tests" for him that he believes he was set up to fail.

For example, he went to lunch with the supervisor and others and spoke up on a topic. Matuszewski was later told he had been expected to be quiet and "had failed that test."

Erin Gordon, a lawyer-turned-journalist, says when she first started her career in the 1990s, it was derailed by repeated bullying at a law firm where she was an associate in the labor and employment practice.

Other lawyers discussed her sex life, defaced a photo of her that had been hung in the copy room, excluded her from events and then refused to admit there was a problem, Gordon says. She consulted with employment lawyers and was told she had a strong sexual harassment claim but that suing would make subsequent employment difficult. Instead, within two years, she stopped practicing law.

Decades later, Gordon wrote a book about her experiences titled Look What You Made Me Do: Confronting Heartbreak & Harassment in Big Law, to shed light on the issue of bullying in the legal industry. (See "Painful Memories," August-September 2024, page 26.) She does not think bullying is a thing of the past in the profession.

"I have heard from so many people saying, ‘This is exactly what happened to me,'" Gordon says. "Partners in particular have power in their firms, and they are like bullies in the schoolyard."

As Gordon and Rollings can attest, the legal industry has long had a reputation for encouraging–or at the very least failing to rein in–aggressive personalities and allowing a certain degree of hazing between partners or senior supervisors and less-experienced associates or underlings.

According to Davey, bullies in a law firm can be "the rainmakers who have impunity because of their importance to the firm's bottom line."

But they can also be the administrative assistant or office manager "who is protected by the loyalty they have earned from influential people," she adds. "These bullies can be particularly insidious because they manage effectively and leave their managers in the dark about how they treat other people."

If an individual is being bullied, Davey suggests using "direct, objective statements to impose boundaries" on how they expect to be treated. She also suggests documenting every encounter.

"Bullies tend to pick the most vulnerable and look elsewhere when they meet resistance," Davey says.

It may be possible to push back effectively if the bully can empathize, according to Rollings.

"Know your audience before you determine whether self-advocacy is a realistic option," she says. "If you can glimpse an ounce of humanity in the bully, that person might be a safe person to approach with self-advocacy."

Bystander training is also important in creating a positive organizational dynamic, says Davey, author of The Good Fight: Use Productive Conflict to Get Your Team and Organization Back on Track.

"If bystanders shut down an attempt at bullying, it tends to stop," Davey adds.

Erika Harold, executive director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, also has witnessed pervasive bullying in the legal industry, such as jokes or comments containing racist or sexist slurs and attempts to ruin someone's reputation by spreading false information regarding their work ethic or work product. To better study how pervasive the issue is in the profession, she commissioned the Bullying in the Legal Profession survey and study to find out whether lawyers had experienced bullying or been bullies themselves within a one-year period.

Besides finding that women tend to be bullied more than men, overall, the study revealed that people of color, LGBTQ+ attorneys and attorneys with disabilities are disproportionately affected by bullying. Younger lawyers appeared to be more likely to be bullied than older ones.

The study also found that only 20% of lawyers who said they were bullied in their workplace reported it to a supervisor, human resources manager or a senior attorney. The reasons respondents gave for not reporting bullying included not wanting to be perceived as weak or a complainer; fear of the bully's status; a belief that the employer would not do anything to help; and concerns about keeping their job or work. In addition, 52% of lawyers who reported bullying to their employer described the response as either "not sufficient" or "totally unsatisfactory," according to the report.

Roberta "Bobbi" Liebenberg, a principal with the Red Bee Group and a past chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, says the legal industry–including legal employers, bar associations and the judiciary–should be ensuring there are established anti-bullying policies at their organizations. Lawyers who violate the policies, she adds, should be held accountable with meaningful consequences, such as mandatory training, a reprimand, a demotion or getting fired.

"We hope this data provides people with the ammunition they need to go to the leaders within their legal organization to get them engaged on this important issue and set the tone at the top that bullying within their organization will not be tolerated," Liebenberg says. 

Related Event: On June 10, the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism is hosting "Standing Up to Intimidation: Confronting Bullying in the Legal Profession," a free CLE webinar co-sponsored by the ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Section of Civil Rights and Responsibilities. Register here to attend.