Employee alleges she was fired after affair with boss

An employee of a Canberra-based law firm complained she was fired after a seven-month affair with her married boss.

Editor’s note: This story first appeared on HR Leader’s sister brand, Lawyers Weekly.

A sole practitioner was dragged before the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) after a former employee complained she was fired a month after their sexual relationship ended.

The council of the ACT Law Society alleged the employer – whose name and law firm were anonymised – was guilty of either professional misconduct or unsatisfactory professional conduct for having a sexual relationship with the employee at a time when she suffered from a psychological impairment and was vulnerable.

The employer was allegedly similarly guilty of terminating the employee in July 2020 after the relationship came to a tense end.

However, ACAT was not persuaded that the charges were proven.

“We are not satisfied, to the necessary standard, that [the employee] suffered from the alleged psychological impairment at the time of the affair,” presidential member Juliet Lucy and acting presidential member Greg Curtin SC said in their written reasons.

“There was no medical evidence to that effect, [the employee] gave no evidence of feeling vulnerable leading up to and during the duration of the affair, and there were no other facts proved from which we, as a lay tribunal, could infer vulnerability.”

Given the findings relating to the employee’s vulnerability, ACAT said allegations about there being a power imbalance fell away.

ACAT was told the two – both married with children – had been close with each other’s families since 2012. The employee began to work at the firm in 2016 after a motor vehicle accident made it hard for her to continue her employment elsewhere.

Around 2018, after a paralegal left the firm, the only people working in the office were the two of them and the boss’s wife. There was evidence the employee and wife were “best friends” who commuted together and assisted with school drop-offs and collections.

The employee said the sexual relationship commenced in November 2020 following office drinks she did not partake in. She said the two engaged in sexual activity “about once per week”.

For the next several months, the employee said the two “had numerous arguments” about their different expectations, her moods, and the “deterioration” of her relationship with the wife, and this caused the office environment to become “tense”.

In early June 2021 – around the time the relationship ended – there was a meeting about the employee’s conduct in the office, which had been recorded on a file note as “improper, threatening, harassing, abusive, obsessive”, and noted “monthly/weekly conflicts”.

The employee accepted she had behaved “this way”.

According to the boss, a second meeting later that month delved into how the employee’s “inappropriate conduct” degraded.

In a letter to advise the employee of a meeting to discuss her potential termination, the boss noted her “threatening conduct, lashing out, abusive conduct and bullying and harassment”. He invited her to show cause why she should not be terminated.

In response, the employee admitted her conduct has been “s--t” and she has been “jealous” of the boss and his wife.

“Sometimes, particularly when so many things are falling apart around me, it is really hard to face such a perfect couple. I took it out on you both. I have also been jealous of [the wife’s] outside relationships and have felt increasingly distanced from her and even your family,” the employee added in her response letter.

In dismissing the charges, ACAT said it was clear the end of the affair was a “root cause” of the employee’s distress, and this “would have been obvious to the respondent”. It was also accepted this was likely the “significant cause” of her perceived work behaviour.

“But that is not the issue in this case,” Lucy and Curtin said.

“We are not a tribunal of morals, nor a tribunal conducting a general inquiry into the behaviour of the respondent, how he treated [the employee] on a personal level, and whether that behaviour would be regarded as socially acceptable or something else.

“We are sitting as a disciplinary tribunal tasked with determining whether two charges of less than acceptable professional conduct occurred. The issue for determination by us are [the council’s charges] and nothing more.”

The case is Council of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory v R (a pseudonym) (Occupational Discipline) [2025] ACAT 8 (19 February 2025).