Lawyer suspended after posting job ad for seXXXcretary

I’ve just been on a posting spree this week! You know what they say: While the husband’s away, the Stephie will play.

Or, erm… update her blog. Exciting times in my life, people, let me tell you.

Anyway. There’s a project at work that’s making me vaguely uncomfortable for personal reasons, but that I’m doing because, hey, part of the job: Searching for sexual harassment presentations and whatnot for next year. Good thing I love researching!

Almost like kismet, while searching, I received an email from a paralegal LinkedIn group of which I’m a part with an article about some Illinois attorney named Samir Zia Chowhan. Go ahead, read it. I’ll be here when you get back.

I expect a serious “WTF” face upon your return.

I literally paused I read through it myself. In short, Chowhan was recently suspended by the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission over, among other things, an ad he posted on Craigslist for a legal secretary that would — and scarily enough, I quote! — “require sexy dressing” and “sexual interaction” with him and another attorney who worked at his office (though not in the same “firm”). He was issued a one-year suspension from practice in an Illinois Supreme Court decision recently for several things, including lying about the freakin’ ad itself.

Count III of the first amended complaint actually has the text of both the ad and the follow-up email sent to Debbi Dickinson, a woman who ended up applying to the position (including her resume and photos and, as far as I know, her measurements… as requested by the ad). Some highlights:

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.

[...] we’ve actually hired a couple of girls in the past for this position. But they have not been able to handle the sexual aspect of the job later. We have to be sure you’re comfortable with that aspect, because I don’t want you to do anything that you’re not comfortable with. So since that time, 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.

So shoot me, the highlights above constitute half the letter. Whatever. But it’s so blatantly… really? really?! that I had to reiterate.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m totally down with anything going on between two consenting adults, regardless of circumstance. And don’t let this taint your opinion of attorneys; I’ve known a few smokin’ hot ones in my day. But this kind of letter, this kind of direct solicitation for something that is obviously more than a simple working relationship… that’s where my beef lies.

Let’s put aside legal issues for a moment; after all, prostitution is illegal in Illinois. And never mind that he’s, you know, a lawyer. Assuming prostitution was legal, wouldn’t you think it’d be easier to seek out and hire a prostitute to fuck you and your partner and maybe ask her to do some filing on the side than hire a tried-and-true secretary and try to convince her to fuck you and your partner?

You gotta give him one thing: At least he was up front about it. There were no parsing of words, no false assumptions, no surprises. Not in the follow-up email, at least; the original post, while not as blatant as the follow-up, could have been read between the lines. Can you imagine if this poor woman unwittingly had taken the job like the ones who were actually there before her, only to be expected to perform these sexual favors and fired if she didn’t? She was forewarned about what a fucking douchecanoe blowhard he is!

But that doesn’t make it at all right.While I guess it could be argued that he did the moral thing by not hiding what he was actually looking for, he did the unethical thing of soliciting someone for that purpose, anyway. As an attorney, he’s held to a higher ethical standard than most others. This man is supposed to know the law, abide by it, and hold his own ethics in higher regard.

Thennnnnn… he decided to ask someone who I’m sure was frantic for a job (and who applied to any skeezy-looking job as a result — hey, y’all, desperate times) to add sex to her list of required duties. So much for those ethics, huh.

Like I said, I have no problem with things between consenting adults. And I mean it when I say under any circumstance. But if someone freaks you out like this and insists that you do them so you can keep or even have the job — and even going as far as to say that others have done it “wrong” and you have let them go as a result — especially when that person is supposed to hold a standard above all others and ensure that the standard is upheld, then that… well, that crosses ethical and personal boundaries that I can’t even think about right now.

Dude, and seriously. What kind of moron do you have to be to do all this… from your work email!