A summer clerk allegedly touched inappropriately by a former Russell McVeagh partner said she felt as if she was "just a piece of meat" to the man
A former Russell McVeagh partner caused a colleague to angrily storm out of a party at his home when he kissed a summer clerk in a sauna as his wife was sleeping elsewhere, a tribunal has been told.
Two other summer clerks who allege they were inappropriately touched by the man at an office Christmas party have also detailed the impact of his actions, with one saying she felt as if she was "just a piece of meat" to him.
The former partner is before the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal regarding seven charges of “misconduct or (alternatively) unsatisfactory conduct”.
The first five charges relate to his behaviour towards four summer clerks at an out-of-office Christmas function which took place in Wellington, while one involves events with a fifth summer clerk (not testifying to the tribunal) at a “team” Christmas party held at the lawyer’s home.
On the second day of the hearing, the third complainant to testify this week, who was allegedly touched on the breast and buttocks by the partner while dancing, said the man had been “lauded and applauded for being a hip, cool guy” at the firm - but her feelings changed dramatically following the incident.
“I recall that for me, the partner went from being the funny drinker in the firm to ‘This guy’s an animal and I want to get out of here’.”
While she was in a corner dancing with junior solicitors, the partner moved up behind her and grabbed her bottom, “more like a caress”.
She first thought he had mistaken her for someone else, but he then put both his hands around her waist as he was behind her, then moving one from her waist to one of her breasts.
She did not swear or react, as “my usual reaction in that situation is that this person is a predator and therefore unsafe and I would be fearful that they would get angry”.
After removing herself from the dance floor, the partner joined the woman at the bar and asked her to finish her drink in a way that “felt like an instruction”.
The complainant said she had been in counselling for years following the partner’s actions. After moving law firms, she had to take tranquilisers during her early months in the job due to anxiety about sharing an office with a male partner.
Asked by the partner’s lawyer, Julian Long, whether the man had simply been dancing in an exuberant way during her encounter with him, the woman replied: “I’m not going to conflate his dancing with his assaults.”
Long also questioned the woman’s description of how the partner had touched her bottom, saying she had variously described it as a grab, a caress, and moving his hand despite different connotations - but the complainant said she had wanted to give the impression it wasn’t “a momentary kind of brush” where it could have been a mistake.
“When it continues, that’s when you feel that it might be sinister or it might be intentional.”
“[The partner] would not have known my name when he assaulted me at the Christmas party - to him I was just a piece of meat.”
A fourth complainant, who says she was touched on the bottom then kissed on the cheek by the partner, told the tribunal she felt “engulfed” by the man when he approached her on the dance floor.
He moved one hand around her bottom and lower back, before delivering what she described as “a direct and intentional kiss on my face”.
“I was shocked and disgusted by it, so if I was to describe it, it wouldn’t be described as a kiss I’d expect from my uncle but a sexually motivated and completely inappropriate kiss.”
The thought of the partner disgusted her and made her feel sick, and she was still seeing a counsellor years after the incident.
“[The partner] would not have known my name when he assaulted me at the Christmas party - to him I was just a piece of meat.”
The complainant rejected a suggestion from Long that it may have just been a case of the partner “trying to be fun”, along with a subsequent reference to it possibly being “just flamboyant party behaviour in a misguided way”.
“I’ve seen flamboyant party behaviour before and I’ve never been sexually assaulted by that person,” the woman responded.
'Such an error of judgment'
A former colleague of the partner, who witnessed the man kissing and touching a summer clerk in a sauna during a Christmas party at the man’s house - separate to the office function - said he had been angered by the behaviour and stormed out as a result.
“I stood up and would have said something like, ‘What the hell?’ or ‘What the eff?’. I was angry that [the man] was making such an error of judgment at his house...particularly [with] a summer clerk.”
The summer clerk had been “a bit drunk and flirty” towards the partner, and the activity “looked very much consensual”, but the colleague was still upset given the power imbalance and the fact the man’s wife was asleep in a different part of the house at the time.
“After all this had happened [publicity about the wider Russell McVeagh allegations] it seemed blindingly obvious to me that I should have called someone else or just in some other way made sure that everyone left okay, but that wasn’t part of my thinking at the time...it weighs on my mind a little bit.”
Responding to a cross-examination by Long, the colleague confirmed that the partner was known for his sociability, saying the law firm “was quite keen to sort of wheel him out for recruitment events and client events and so forth”.
The partner had a reputation as an energetic dancer, and it would not have surprised him for the man to be dancing with summer clerks and other staff at the larger office Christmas party.
The former colleague said the partner while sober, and then after work, “were almost different people”, while there was a work hard, play hard culture within the team that seemed to be generally accepted.
“We all know when something is appropriate and not appropriate intuitively, and this was something that made a group of people, myself included, feel uncomfortable.”
A male summer clerk who witnessed some of the partner’s behaviour at the office party said he had seen the man “inserting himself into [the] personal space” of the second complainant and touching her breast while a group was waiting for taxis to arrive.
“I didn’t know if it was accidental, but it being intentional seemed consistent with the fact that he was being sleazy towards [the woman],” he said of the partner’s physical contact.
The male clerk said he felt “exactly how you would, I guess, expect to feel being a summer clerk watching that something like that happen with a person in a position of authority - kind of frozen...shocked by it I guess, or a little lost”.
He said he then saw the partner attempt to get into a taxi with the woman, although he was rebuffed.
The clerk said he had not seen anything untoward on the dance floor at the event, and did not remember specific details about the partner’s actions outside, but rejected a suggestion from Long that the behaviour may have been accidental, saying: “We all know when something is appropriate and not appropriate intuitively, and this was something that made a group of people, myself included, feel uncomfortable.”
In 2018, Newsroom revealed a group of summer law clerks in Wellington had been subjected to sexual assault and harassment during their time at the law firm two summers earlier.
In the wake of the investigation, all six of the country's university law faculties cut ties with Russell McVeagh while it investigated the claims, and hundreds of university students marched to the firm’s Wellington offices to protest sexual harassment in the workplace.
A damning review into the law firm’s handling of the allegations, carried out by Dame Margaret Bazley at Russell McVeagh’s request, described a “work hard, play hard culture” that involved sexually inappropriate behaviour.
The disciplinary tribunal hearing will continue through the week.
Where to get help:
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