Firm owner ordered to pay employees $10k for watching pornography at work

A New Zealand-based lawyer who repeatedly watched pornography at work has been suspended from practice after a disciplinary tribunal found he repeatedly exposed female staff to such explicit conduct in his office.

A New Zealand-based firm owner has been suspended from practice after a disciplinary tribunal found he repeatedly exposed female staff to pornography in his office, creating what the tribunal described as a “toxic and emotionally unsafe” work environment.

The conduct dates back to at least 2016 and continued despite an incident in November 2022, when a junior staff member raised concerns about his behaviour.

At that time, the law firm owner acknowledged he had an “addiction” to viewing pornography and promised to “block it and get help”.

However, within months, staff were again exposed to similar material.

Referred to as Mr H in the proceedings, the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal heard that, although he closed pornographic websites when staff entered his office, his female employees were “exposed, fleetingly but repeatedly” to the material he viewed on his computer.

One staff member even suggested he rearrange his office to prevent his computer screen from being visible to anyone entering the room, but he resisted these suggestions.

As a result of these encounters – some employees reporting them occurred several times a day – his employees reportedly experienced feelings of “horror, shock, disgust, discomfort, embarrassment, and shame”.

While he claimed he did not know his employees could see his screen, the tribunal noted that because he resisted suggestions to rearrange his office and merely clicked away from the content he was viewing, “we cannot imagine that he could not have been aware of the situation”.

“To claim otherwise amounts to wilful blindness,” the tribunal said.

“The conduct constitutes ongoing failure to observe a reasonable duty of care to his employees. We find that earlier behaviour was at least reckless of staff sensibilities.”

The tribunal also heard that Mr H’s firm had “no policy or process for raising concerns about such behaviour”, leaving staff vulnerable to a “power imbalance because they were anxious about adverse effects on their employment if they complained”.

In late April 2023, the staff members eventually resigned from his firm and filed a complaint with the New Zealand Law Society Complaints Service a few weeks later.

While the tribunal noted that Mr H’s conduct was “not criminally unlawful”, it concluded that the length of time over which he exposed his staff to the material aggravated the severity of his misconduct.

“We find his conduct was reckless, so that staff members were repeatedly confronted with pornographic material. The unhappy consequences for his employees flowed from his recklessness,” the tribunal said.

Although Mr H has since left the legal profession and sought help for his addiction – efforts the tribunal recognised as genuine – it stated that a suspension was still necessary to reflect the seriousness of his misconduct.

The tribunal ordered Mr H to be suspended from practice for three months starting 6 December, censured him, and required him to pay $5,000 each to two former employees who had complained about his conduct.

He must also contribute $15,000 towards the Standards Committee’s costs and reimburse tribunal costs in full.