Reference no: EM133493381

Case Study

The following case of bullying in the workplace is based on a series of real incidents. A few of the details have been altered to protect the identity of the individual involved.

Candice was a top lawyer at a prestigious law firm. Although her husband was considered the top litigator in their area of specialization, Candice was consistently ranked in the top five and was definitely the top female litigator. In the mid-1990s, she went to another law firm for a brief period to try to right that ship, but the environment was so toxic she came back to her previous firm. Even while she had left the state to work at the other law firm, she remained a full partner with voting rights at the previous firm.

Dan was a junior lawyer who started work at the law firm in 1999 and quickly became fast friends with Candice and her husband, Paul. Although Dan was only a junior associate, he was quickly asked to take on more and more cases and started working very closely with both Candice and Paul.

The other partners in the firm were a bunch of highly driven, testosterone-riddled men, who were second-tier litigators slowly but surely making a name for themselves in the legal community. The bullying started simply. When the senior leadership within the firm underwent a change, Harold (a long-standing partner) took over the enterprise and started assigning duties and cases. First, Harold took Candice off cases and gave them to lawyers who weren't even named partners. Unfortunately, Candice had no recourse because her and Paul's votes in the partner meetings were outnumbered by the younger partners. Harold even took away the day-to-day operations of the firm's pro bono legal office, which had been Candice's idea and "baby" for more than twenty years. Harold gave the pro bono legal work to one of his underlings who had only been with the firm for about two years, telling Candice, "We just need a change."

Shortly thereafter, Dan was sitting in the conference room with a variety of male partners and non-partners and the subject of Candice arose. Harold was the most vicious of the group, at one point commenting that he kept waiting to see when Candice would have a nervous breakdown. Another lawyer proposed that the group start placing bets and recommend they create a "crackpot" with bets predicting when Candice would finally "crack up."

Dan found himself later that afternoon in a meeting with Candice and had to tell her what he'd overheard. Obviously, she was mad, but her reaction surprised Dan. "Dan, that behavior has been going on for years. I'm just glad they're targeting me and not my husband. He still thinks those jerks are his friends."

1. Would you consider this case workplace bullying? Why or why not?

2. What type of counterproductive work behaviors can you identify in this case?

3. Candace escalates this to HR. Pretend you are HR. What would you do?