The owner of the law firm would regularly watch pornography on his work computer. Illustration / Paul Slater
A law firm boss who was watching porn at work claimed he didn’t know his employees could see his screen.
This was despite advice from his secretary that he move his office around so his computer couldn’t be seen from the door when she entered the room, or from the carpark outside.
Multiple employees complained that the man, whose name is suppressed, would constantly watch pornography while in the office, and would close the videos or images he was viewing when anyone entered.
However, he began to take longer to close the content when one of the women entered the office, which made her feel uncomfortable and anxious.
Staff eventually complained about his conduct to the New Zealand Law Society and while the man admitted his behaviour was “egregious”, he claimed he didn’t know his employees could see his screen.
Today, the lawyer appeared at a hearing of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal in Auckland, where he’s facing charges of misconduct.
According to the charges, he watched pornography in the office at times from 2018 until 2022.
One of his legal secretaries said the situation worsened when the firm moved locations, and the man’s office was set up so that anyone entering the room could immediately see his computer screen. His screen was also visible from the carpark.
On three occasions, his secretary suggested he reorganise his office so that his screen wasn’t visible upon entry.
However, he didn’t take her advice, nor did he stop watching pornography in the office, and over time, the woman said he would take longer to click out of the content he was watching when she entered the room.
The secretary said she was afraid to tell her boss to stop the behaviour as he could often be verbally aggressive, arrogant and condescending towards her.
According to the charges, the videos her boss was watching made her feel uncomfortable and anxious, especially when she was in the room alone with him.
Another legal secretary working at the firm said the lawyer would often arrive at work in a bad mood and take it out on the staff, and he had made her cry numerous times.
On one occasion, she entered his office and found him watching pornography, and she said it made her feel uncomfortable and disgusted.
However, she didn’t complain because she was intimidated by him and did not want to lose her job.
Another female employee, a legal assistant, said she saw him looking at pornographic photos on his computer and was horrified, but assumed it was a one-off occurrence.
But after this first incident, she witnessed it again, sometimes multiple times a day, and began to feel unsafe in the office.
Initially, she felt no one would believe her but she later found out other staff had been having similar experiences.
The women then raised what they’d seen with another lawyer at the firm, who confronted the man.
In response, he said he had an addiction and needed to get help, but wouldn’t expose his staff to those images again.
The following day, he advised the other lawyer that he’d found a counsellor and had installed blocks on his computer to prevent him from watching pornography.
But several months later, staff members began seeing pornographic images on the firm owner’s computer screen again. One staff member quit, and the man agreed to work from home for a time.
The other lawyer filed a complaint to the New Zealand Law Society about the man’s behaviour, which the man admitted was “egregious”. He said he was now undergoing counselling to help with his addiction.
Two of the women who worked at the firm required counselling as a result of the man’s actions.
At the hearing, counsel for the Standards Committee prosecuting the man, Evan McCaughan, said he was seeking a censure, a suspension of up to three months, despite the man no longer practising, and for him to pay two of his victims up to $15,000 each.
McCaughan’s submissions detail the impact the man’s offending had on his victims, with one of the women saying she struggles with “anxiety, panic attacks, insecurity, insomnia, low confidence and a short temper”, and she had developed a disordered eating condition.
“We all have trauma, but that does not give anyone an excuse to treat others as poorly as he did us,” she told investigators looking into the complaint.
Another employee said she has to attend monthly counselling, and that the man’s conduct made her question whether working in law was right for her.
She suffers from anxiety, and her relationships with her family were significantly affected. She said she was still fearful of encountering the man.
McCaughan said aggravating factors were the number of times the man watched pornography in the office and that three employees were exposed to it.
McCaughan said there was a significant power imbalance between the man and his employees.
“If I saw my boss looking at this material, I’m not sure I’d be able to raise it with them immediately,” he said.
McCaughan said two of the women were still traumatised by the man’s behaviour.
“It’s actually somewhat shocking how much damage has been caused to these two women by just viewing these images momentarily on [his] computer.”
The lawyer’s counsel, Briar Webster, said her client had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, sought help for his porn addiction, left the legal profession voluntarily and was extremely remorseful about his behaviour.
“[He] was struggling with an active addiction that manifested through watching pornography,” Webster said in her submissions.
“This was not, and is not, a case of a practitioner watching pornography simply for enjoyment.”
Webster said her client had been attempting to “self-medicate” with pornography for mental health issues.
“[He] is now in a different place to where he was. He has fought incredibly hard to get well. He has strategies that he developed with his counsellor to help him in times of stress,” she said.
The tribunal will issue its decision on penalty in writing at a later date.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū, covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.