Lawyers and sexual assault
How effective is the judicial branch in addressing and ultimately convicting sexual assault cases? Are culturally imposed attempts at litigation and justice broken when it comes to sexual assault?
You may be aware of the statistics when it comes to sexual assault. You may not. For those of you unaware of the reality, I’d like to enlighten you as to the true nature of how our judicial systems are ill equipped to litigate such offenses and breaches of not only personal freedom, but rights to emotional and physical safety as stipulated by both domestic law and the United Nations Declaration for Human Rights.
Only one third of all sexual assault cases are ever reported to the police (in New Zealand it is a staggering 94% that go unreported) and of those cases, only one third actually make it to court.
Perhaps the most shocking statistic is that of the one third of cases that make it to court (of the one third actually reported,) only 11% actually result in conviction.
Eleven percent!
And these statistics track globally.
#MeToo and Public Retribution
You will agree that this is a frightening reality. One that was exposed during the #metoo movement that gained traction globally. Ask yourself, why do you think that hashtag spread as quickly as it did? Because it represents a reality experienced by most humans. In New Zealand, that bastion of sunshine and glorious Lord of the Rings style backdrops that will take your breath away, you may find it shocking that one in three people will experience a form of sexual assault during their lifetimes.
That is every third person you meet waiting in line at the cinema, buying ice cream or playing on a sports field somewhere.
With all of these resources the legal profession has at its disposal, it really beggars the question, why are lawyers so bad at convicting and, ultimately exposing sexual harassment? Why is sexual assault so under reported? Why do those cases that go to trial have such a statistically significantly low conviction rate?
Wait, what … are we missing something here?
Is it perhaps that most of these cases do not have the potential to satiate the pursuit of material gains and cash flow, that lies at the foundational aspirations of most lawyers? Namely financial reward.
Is overt greed standing in the way of justice here?
It comes as absolutely no surprise that it was a reporter, Ronan Farrow in the New Yorker, who finally exposed Harvey Weinstein as a serial rapist in his excellent reporting. Not a judge, not a lawyer, a journalist made this happen.
Farrow’s articles sparked a global movement (colloquially referred to as the #metoo movement) and seemed to add some fuel to the fire of previous legal cases that had gone quiet. Bill Cosby was another high profile case that had been languishing in the quagmire litany of written legal arguments, without ever really going anywhere - well, until journalists reported on the case.
A judgment was made soon after the chaos and prolonged nature of the court proceedings, had been made available to the public. The outrage that followed the reporting, expedited the trial and ultimately resulted in Cosby being sentenced to 10 years in a maximum security facility.
Lawyers are great at promoting the nature of trial proceedings and stalling outcomes. How?
Well, do the math. Literally. Most law firms bill by the hour, every keystroke and phone call is recorded, so as to make as much money from any single case, as much as humanly possible - *with AI incorporated into law, this might change a little; ie making the hiring of talented representatives in the profession more accessible to those with less means or access to financing. A true leveler in the field of historically unrepresented defendants in public court systems. A state of affairs that has left many people underrepresented and many cases dropped due to a lack of will, understanding, finances and sheer lack of energy - most notably evident in sexual assault cases. The proceedings are too difficult and the outcomes just not financially viable. To most lawyers.
Lawyers love to intimidate
Whilst researching this article I approached several law firms in both the South and North Island for commentary. *Note that these law firms are currently representing people and entities who either have active sexual assault cases already under judicial scrutiny or have historical allegations to deal with. The replies I got from these law firms were eerily similar, like they had colluded or were just boring clones of each other.
Weirdly, they also love writing all their points like this (see below) - as if they are incapable of stringing actual sentences together.
This was the way they framed their correspondence to me:
As mentioned, their letters were incredibly similar in nature, tone and presentability
ALL were very bullying in tone with threats of defamation liability, looming cease and desist orders (among many of the more overt threats.) One law firm even stated that they had sent my correspondence to the police (as if the police are not already stretched beyond their capacity?)
ALL were condescending, employing language deliberately meant to confuse and obfuscate the facts - many wrote “untrue” and “misleading” in the same sentence when it came to the more gregarious allegations being laid at their clients. How can something be “untrue” AND “misleading”? It’s either one or the other. And also, does anyone know what “scurrilous” means?
ALL of them questioned my credibility and deliberately tried to humiliate and intimidate me.
ALL also questioned the reliability of my witness testimonies, without having even read them.
MOST of them had grammatical and spelling mistakes - easily spotted by this veteran editor of 25 years.
ALL of them questioned my association with FACT Aotearoa - a charity geared at exposing the truth in NZ, whilst simultaneously fighting lies and misinformation propagated through conspiracy theories. I have worked with FACT for several years and most of my pertinent articles and actions have found their way on to the FACT website.
What struck me most was how similar these correspondences were in their presentation. Instead of answering within the body of the email, they ALL attached a fancy PDF with their oft diabolical letterheads, meant to intimidate or at least elevate themselves to some higher echelon of human because they once employed a graphics designer to create a brand symbol - a symbol that more often than not expropriates symbols of nature and animals, in an attempt to disguise their true motives, namely the accumulation of vast swathes of wealth, benefiting on the back of a system designed to prop up the richest people and institutions of the world at the behest of poor people. It’s the same story all over the world.
One law firm employed a presumably fresh, green-faced solicitor (even though I had addressed the main partner,) who proceeded to question my identity and credibility by going on my LinkedIn page. This made me chuckle immensely, as if LinkedIn was some form of divinely guided oracle of human vocation and achievement. This is what my page looks like:
The junior solicitor questioned whether I was in fact a journalist and if so, I wasn’t important enough to engage with as I had zero to little influence. This solicitor also questioned my past interactions with FACT and blatantly denied I had anything to do with the organisation. Step in Anke Richter, one of Germany’s most prominent journalists, author and founding member of FACT Aotearoa, currently residing in the South Island of NZ, and the in depth interview I did with her on my podcast Te Kupu #12.
This solicitor must not have done much due diligence and judging by the fledgling grammar employed in his correspondence I doubt he even has the cranial capacity to do the research required, one single google search would have revealed all. Oh well, pretty frightening to know that someone that you pay $300 an hour to, is incapable of using Google in any effective way, isn’t it?
Everyone wants to be a lawyer
Most of my university friends (bear in mind, most of my friends studied biology and biochemistry) all ended up as lawyers in various capacities and in several countries. Some work at the United Nations, others work in public defending, litigation, for environmental outreach groups and some represent large shipping magnates, hedge funds and other more traditional investment houses. It was through their stories and anecdotes that I found out some of the more harrowing underbellies of this business.
Just like in hospitality, the media and the music industry, it appears unreported sexual assaults are a common occurrence in law firms. Especially female summer interns who are at their most vulnerable, with their-eager-to please demeanor, suffer greatly from inappropriate language, dismissive sexual acts and even in the worst case scenario, rape. I have heard stories from both interns and partners who went though these programmes after they themselves had graduated law school.
I have stories from several large law firms in New Zealand. The problem is real and rife. And most importantly beggars the question, if institutions such as these are even capable of presiding over such sexual assault cases, when the chauvinistic nature of their senior employees, their HR’s lax stance on prosecuting these, result in the very acts themselves happening in their own firms - acts they are meant to be defending in litigation.
Which is why I guess so many prominent lawyers end up defending the actual perpetrators and not the victims. Look at who represented Weinstein, Cosby, Epstein and OJ Simpson. Hint, it was all the same powerful US law firms looking for notoriety and a quick paycheck.
I had a very close friend here in New Zealand, who was herself a lawyer and was raped in pretty traumatic circumstances. She refused to report it in fear of the backlash from her peers and the potential damage it would have on her career and professional future in this industry. She eventually left law altogether. This highlights exactly what is so problematic when it comes to sexual assault. The victim fears to speak up and the perpetrator that performed these acts as a sign of power - get to see their despicable behaviour unpunished. This isn’t happening just in New Zealand, look at the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in the US.
His appointment hearings included written and spoken testimony from Christine Blaisey Ford - who bravely recounted an episode where Kavanaugh had performed acts of sexual violence against her. What happened here? The allegations were swept over and he got appointed to the Court! The highest position in the US besides the president.
A topsy turvy world.
The Legal Profession is an extended family, a Gang, of sorts
Lawyer’s are a gang, perhaps the most powerful one in New Zealand. They don’t wear patches or any other insignia - no, their mode of representation is fancy watches, fancy cars and suits. Which they hide behind, thinking it will wash their conscience clean because other people perceive them as successful in this faux meritocratic society. The boy’s network that runs New Zealand law fraternities is evident. Grandfathers are judges, sons are solicitors and eventually grandsons become interns. The old clandestine wheel of life in the tribe, the “who you know, not, what you do” conundrum. How can we be a meritocratic society when it is connections, not merit, that bolster success and positive outcomes for people. When it comes to the way law is practiced in New Zealand, it is more a feudal, Game of Thrones-esque mish mash of big name law firms and their nepotism, rather than lawyers being chosen because they proved themselves at law school by outperforming their peers.
And this is only going to get worse when artificial intelligence (AI tools) become available to law firms in a real-time applicable fashion. Senior partners at law firms will be offering less and less employment opportunities to recent graduates, because tools such as Open AI’s Chat-GPT 5 and Gemini Law will eventually replace law clerks and summer interns, usually tasked with the more mundane research related tasks that the senior partners are too lazy to do now.
AI judges and solicitors are around the corner. And we could argue that they will be way better at performing both the research tasks and the eventual litigation and adjudication of cases. The people who disagree with this reality (and there are several) argue that it is precisely the emotional aspect of a human that is useful when it comes to trying cases and finding the right course of action or judgment. But emotions are fickle. Humans are fickle. Especially humans who have flagged as one of their ambitions, to buy a better watch every year and a better car and a better holiday and so on and so on. An AI judge or lawyer would not have these ambitions. Not open to bribery etc. So that argument falls well short.
“A bad lawyer might let a case drag on for several years. A good lawyer knows how to make it last even longer.”
As mentioned before, another reason why law firms shy away from sexual assault cases could also be that their institutions themselves have a bad framework and reputation when it comes to sexual assault claims.
The Good Guys
It’s not all doom and gloom. There are some good humans out there performing amicably in this profession. And I have hope. Again, many of my friends decided to pursue careers in law and lots of them are incredible humans. In fact, one of my best friends is a practicing lawyer here in New Zealand and he is one of the best people I know with a strong moral backbone, ethical compass and an almost otherworldly commitment to justice in all its forms. Possibly why we are such close friends, brothers even.
Not all eggs are bad in this batch. Not at all. But some are, and we need to shine a collective spotlight on these, as well as other places of employment in our society.
That is if we want things to change from the current lacklustre status quo.
Please Get in Touch
I am writing a series of articles in conjunction with major NZ media outlets and such I am looking for more cases to include in this series. So please, if you, your family or any of your friends or even aquaintances are in New Zealand and have anecdotal or actual evidence regarding a sexual harassment case or assault in any NZ workplace, then please get in touch with me at chrisvonroy@gmail.com .
So far I have been mainly focused on the hospitality and music industries, as it appears these are the most commonly cited places of employment where sexual assault happens.
There is help
Also if you or your loved ones have recently gone through such experiences of sexual assault please know that help is available. In New Zealand the FREEPHONE is 0800 623 1700 or contact the amazing people at HELP AUCKLAND.