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Astonishing results from Illinois Supreme Court commision study on lawyer bullying

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On Oct. 1, the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism released a study on the impact of bullying in the Illinois legal profession. With over 6,000 Illinois lawyers as respondents, they’re using the data to raise awareness for National Bullying Prevention Month. […]

18% of survey respondents said they left a job practicing law because of bullying. That means almost 10,000 attorneys currently practicing in Illinois have left a career opportunity for this reason alone.

Overall, the responses found that while bullying impacts lawyers from all backgrounds, it disproportionately affects female attorneys, attorneys with disabilities, attorneys of color, younger attorneys and LGBTQ+ attorneys.

* From the press release…

The study found lawyers from groups traditionally underrepresented in the legal profession experienced bullying at higher rates:

• 38% of female lawyers were bullied, compared to 15% of male lawyers
• 38% of lawyers with an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity were bullied, compared to 23% of lawyers without that level of disability
• 29% of LGBTQ+ lawyers were verbally bullied related to their sexual orientation, compared to 3% of heterosexual lawyers

In breaking down experiences of bullying by race:

• 36% of Middle Eastern/North African lawyers were bullied
• 35% of Black/African American lawyers were bullied
• 34% of Hispanic lawyers were bullied
• 32% of multiracial lawyers were bullied
• 28% of Asian American lawyers were bullied
• 23% of white lawyers were bullied

In addition, younger attorneys were more likely to experience bullying, with the probability of being bullied decreasing for each increasingly older group of lawyers. Thirty-nine percent of lawyers aged 25 to 35 were bullied, compared to 12% of lawyers aged 66 to 75.

That’s all just insane. Forget about the differences between categories for a moment and just think of the crazy number of attorneys who said they’ve been bullied.

* More…

The report outlines recommendations that workplaces, bar associations, law schools, government organizations, and others can take to help prevent bullying in the legal profession.

These include:

• Legal workplaces should develop, implement, and enforce anti-bullying policies. These policies should clearly define bullying, detail concrete and meaningful remedial actions for engaging in bullying (including mandatory training, reprimand, demotion, termination, or other consequences), outline the process for reporting bullying, require an investigation of the allegations and documentation of the results, and prohibit retaliation for reporting. Existing anti-harassment policies that only prohibit harassment based on a protected class are insufficient.
• Legal workplaces should conduct training specific to their organization’s anti-bullying policies and procedures to equip lawyers with tools to respond, whether they are being targeted by bullying or witnessing it.
• Law schools should also offer educational programs and training to law students on bullying prevention.
• Courts should enforce anti-bullying standards in courtrooms and litigation activities.
• The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC) should continue to review the bullying complaints it receives and, when such complaints show bullying behavior that violates the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct, recommend appropriate remediation or disciplinary measures to send a strong message against the bullying.
• Bar associations should use their resources and reach to advance programs that educate members on the prevalence and impact of bullying in the legal profession.
• Lawyers being bullied should respond in the way they feel best safeguards their rights, well-being, and career.

The full report is here.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 3:03 am

Comments

The problem is that many, many clients want an aggressive attorney and many attorneys seem amenable to playing that role to get/retain clients. The loud, aggressive lawyer is, in almost all instances, not the best or most effective lawyer. The general public - and sophisticated clients - don’t know or care about that, unfortunately, and TV shows and movies reinforce this view. Kudos to those trying to inject civility into the legal profession, however, this is a much larger societal issue.

Comment by Laura Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 6:44 am
Forced to work with lawyers many times during my career in law enforcement.

There were some good people there, however, the profession is tailor made for aggressive, Type A egos.

To get a lawyer to admit mistakes is to reverse the rotation of the Earth.

Comment by Flyin'Elvis'-Utah Chapter Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 7:25 am
The Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois needs to be proactive and step up its game considerably.
Too often, the Commission simply ignores requests for investigations of lawyers and only wants to pursue easier matters.

Comment by Gravitas Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 7:31 am
==the profession is tailor made for aggressive, Type A egos==

interesting cast-the-first-stone approach, ha

Comment by Stephanie Kollmann Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 7:42 am
Bullying is so pervasive that there are still law faculty who believe that if you’re not bullying students, you’re not preparing them for practice.

Comment by Stephanie Kollmann Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 7:43 am
I’m not a lawyer and can’t say I’ve been a victim of bullying, but I’ve seen it plenty. It’s always seemed to me that management is as afraid of the bully as their victim is. I’ve also seen employees quit who weren’t the victims of bullying but didn’t like the toxic environment.

This is something that needs to be nipped in the bud the first time it happens.

Comment by Excitable Boy Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 7:48 am
”Pay me. I’ll shamelessly act any way the client wants, I’ll say anything the client wants me to say, and then earnestly claim the client deserves a vigorous defense like it somehow serves justice.”

Comment by Occasionally Moderated. Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 7:55 am
=== just think of the crazy number of attorneys who said they’ve been bullied. ===

Unfortunately those figures are pretty much in line with self-reported workplace abuse in the private sector. In the wake of scandal, the legislature enacted reforms to address workplace abuse in the Legislative Branch. Kudos to the Judicial Branch for making a critical self-examination, and hopefully making similar steps forward.

According to research, workplace abuse is a common means for low-performing workers to impede, undermine and drive out high-performers, who threaten their career advancement, power and influence. We all benefit from curtailing abusive workplace behavior.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 8:05 am
“workplace abuse is a common means for low-performing workers to impede, undermine and drive out high-performers, who threaten their career advancement, power and influence”

This is the last managing attorney I worked for. Others got it much worse than I did. Mine and my family’s quality of life improved 1000% when I stopped practicing law.

Comment by Larry Bowa Jr. Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 8:17 am
Just as a statistical aside, the fact that the overall pattern is 18%, and yet the percentage for white lawyers is 23%, suggests that ethnic minorities are also significantly under-represented in the legal profession. That they are under-represented and yet have higher rates that white lawyers, suggest not only that fewer minorities are completing law school (relative to whites), but bullying along race lines may well be a contributing factor to their under-representation. It would be interesting to see a follow-up along those lines, because if so, it would point to latent racial discrimination in the practice.

Comment by H-W Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 8:44 am
The legal profession has done an admirable if imperfect job of addressing substance abuse by professionals. I hope they address this with the same or greater determination.

Comment by Socially DIstant watcher Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 8:56 am
“interesting cast-the-first-stone approach,”

Sure. I’m the only person who has that opinion of lawyers.

Comment by Flyin'Elvis'-Utah Chapter Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 8:58 am
This is far bigger than lawyers (&, based upon comments, law enforcement). In my experience, the very worst are incompetent patronage hires as managers.

Comment by Anyone Remember Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 9:09 am
I hate to say it, but this is only a surprise if you haven’t really talked to younger, minority, and women attorneys. This is an absolutely endemic problem and extends beyond bullying, but of general jackassery by a load of the bar to their colleagues when they think they can get away with it.

There are a lot of incompetent and lazy attorneys out there that love to absolutely rip younger, non-white, and women attorneys every which way to cover their own tracks. If a random black female attorney committed as much as a tenth of the mistakes that I’ve heard levied against some of these bozos, they’d be the first on the charge to have them disbarred over it.

Comment by TJ Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 9:15 am
I’m shocked — shocked — to find that gambling is going on in here.

No one who is in court rooms on a regular basis is astonished or shocked.

The level of decorum has steadily declined since my first appearance as a witness for the State in the 90’s. Being in a fed courtroom is always a breath of fresh air.

Comment by HSI Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 9:21 am
Have you met many lawyers? In a former career spanning over 30 years I encountered and worked with literally hundreds of them. I will only say I was dissuaded from going to law school by the apparently mandatory personality transplant generally performed by a proctologist. So this story is completely on point with my experience. And if you think they bully other lawyers you should see how they treat non lawyers they work with…

Comment by Captain Obvious Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 9:27 am
Don’t doubt that the profession has bullying. stories of firms and clerks and associates and partners abound. But. I wonder (and not just on this topic) about younger people and the need for walking on eggshells around them. giving space, micro aggressions, all talked about so frequently. will read further to see about opinions by age.

Comment by Amalia Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 10:04 am
I’ve been a practicing attorney for 9 years now. I’ve spent the lion’s share of that almost-decade in criminal courts. Because the findings sort by race/gender, I suppose I should note I am a white male.

I’d be interested to know more about what type of behavior the bullied lawyers consider bullying. Inherent to our adversarial system is dispute; some attorneys certainly posture more aggressively than I should think is required to be a fierce or effective advocate. I guess I’m having a hard time imagining feeling bullied by another lawyer. I say this not in any way to dismiss the perspectives of those who have felt bullied. I guess I would chalk up most bullying-type behavior as overzealous advocacy.

Judges bullying lawyers, however, is common-place.

Comment by AlfondoGonz Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 10:13 am
As an elected officer of a local unit of government, I became the target for several types of bullying, including intimidation and exclusionary tactics from “colleagues” on the inside. Unfortunately, when media got wind of the situation they framed it as a “feud,” either not understanding or not caring about the power imbalance at play. I finished the term of office but know the culture there that allows bullying and sexual harassment continues with impunity to this day.

Comment by yinn Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 10:27 am
Forgot to add: the attorneys were/are always complicit.

Comment by yinn Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 10:44 am
“Lawyers being bullied should respond in the way they feel best safeguards their rights, well-being, and career.”

tl;dr- Good luck.

– MrJM

Comment by @misterjayem Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 11:00 am
Have you talked to attorneys in social settings, especially if they’ve had too many drinks? Bullying is there normal go to in my experience. None of this shocks me.

Comment by Lurker Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 11:00 am
Bullying is a serious workplace issue and this is an interesting report exploring its unfortunate presence in the legal profession.
However, I would urge everyone to do the math.
6,000 respondents.
18 percent said they left a job because of bullying.
That does NOT mean 10,000 lawyers left jobs because of bullying.
It means nearly 1,100 left jobs.
Any bullying is too much, but the media report has the math wrong.
If there had been 60,000 respondents then 18 percent would equal more than 10,000.
According to the ARDC 2023 annual report, there are 65,515 active registered lawyers located in Illinois. (96,440 total active/inactive registered in Illinois).
And if you click on the actual study and press release, it refers to a study of just over 6,000 respondents.

Comment by Reporter math Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 11:04 am
==Sure. I’m the only person who has that opinion of lawyers.==

I don’t think that was her point. She wasn’t saying you’re wrong, just that it’s ironic that someone who admits to living in a glass house would choose to throw stones.

Comment by Anon324 Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 11:31 am
How does this compare to other professions?

Comment by Beep booop Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 11:56 am
===How does this compare===

Ever heard of Google? Also, we’re talking about attorneys on this post. It looks like you could be deliberately trying to derail the conversation or undermine the premise.

Save it.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 12:02 pm
Honestly, I am surprised. I practiced criminal law for 35 years. When I was in law school, you could count the number of women in my class on one hand (me included).

And I have to say that I agree with AlfondoGonz that most bullying comes from judges. And they are equal opportunity bullies. They bully lawyers of whatever gender or race. They bully defendants. They bully prosecutors and defense lawyers.

But I rarely saw any bullying from other lawyers.

Maybe things have changed since retired a decade ago.

Comment by JoanP Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 12:08 pm
I asked the IARDC and the Supreme Court’s professionalism person if they had ever considered an option to allow attorneys who were being stalked or harassed to hide their registration on the ARDC’s website, or at least any parts of it that a stalker could use to stalk or harass the attorney.

They didn’t even bother responding. I have a phone number I can’t use for anything but the IARDC because they force you to display a phone number and my stalker just calls that number allllllllll day long.

Comment by Suburban Mom Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 12:18 pm
Geez, now who’s being bullied.

Comment by Beep booop Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 12:32 pm
I want to meet the 3% of heterosexual lawyers who say they were bullied for being heterosexual. (I say this as a gay lawyer who has never been bullied for being gay.) In what context does that happen?

Comment by ChicagoR Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 1:06 pm
@ Reporter Math

If the study was done using a sampling frame, rather than the entire population of lawyers, then we can generalize from the the study of 6000 randomly selected lawyers that the 18% figure applies to the population, not just the same respondents.

The study itself says “the Survey was emailed to 55,295 lawyers, all of whom were registered as active in 2023.” So it seems the entire populations was surveyed (censused, actually).

The report also says 6010 lawyers responded. So that means the response rate was just under 11%. Alternatively, 89% of the lawyers did not return the survey. This is a pretty low response rate, but it does not mean that 89% did not experience bullying - it means they did not care to participate in the study.

We can conclude that of those who did participate, 18% report having left a employer because they were bullied. Recall that in order to participate, these respondents are still lawyers.

To your point, that 18% of the participants indicate that they were bullied, we can generally conclude that that rate applies closely to the the rate of bullying among those who did not respond, unless there is reason to believe those who did and those who did not are fundamentally different groups of lawyers.

I would guess because of the low response rate, there is a little measurement error, but not much. Perhaps 15-20% of all lawyers experience bullying first hand, similar to the sample (subset) of lawyers responding.

Comment by H-W Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 2:57 pm
==I want to meet the 3% of heterosexual lawyers who say they were bullied for being heterosexual. (I say this as a gay lawyer who has never been bullied for being gay.) In what context does that happen?==

This seems insensitive, intimidating, close minded and perhaps a step away from a bullying statement…remember, you can’t exclude folks from a bullying policy based on race, gender, etc.

Comment by Laura Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 3:16 pm
- Beep booop -

Geez, now who’s being bullied. -

A manipulative bully who feels threatened by being identified?

Comment by Dotnonymous x Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 4:55 pm
Laura is correct. Read what I wrote before. Workplace abuse is about power, not about gender identity or sexual preference.

A woman who is managing partner can be just as abusive as a man, if she thinks it will help her career.

How do we stop it?

This part is important:

=== Only 20% of bullied attorneys reported the bullying behavior to a supervisor, human resources manager, or upper-level attorney. Common reasons for not reporting the bullying include not wanting to be perceived as weak or a “complainer” (34%), fear of the bully’s status (27%), the belief that the employer would not take action (27%), or concerns about the loss of work or their job (16%) ===

The Judicial, Legislative and Administrative Branches could send a clear message to all that workplace abuse/bullying is not tolerated by sharing information about how many complaints they recieve regarding workplace abuse, how many were founded, and what action was taken.

When employees see that their workplace takes abusive behavior seriously, the abuse will stop, and not before.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 5:52 pm
Well said, Laura.

Comment by H-W Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 8:11 pm
===According to research, workplace abuse is a common means for low-performing workers to impede, undermine and drive out high-performers, who threaten their career advancement, power and influence. We all benefit from curtailing abusive workplace behavior. ===

Especially in government. Especially in government.

Comment by Candy Dogood Wednesday, Oct 9, 24 @ 9:35 pm
Seems like another breakdown of civilization.

Sad & scary.

Comment by sal-says Thursday, Oct 10, 24 @ 10:14 am