Lawyers and The No Asshole Rule

I guess it is no surprise that lawyers are interested in The No Asshole Rule.  As I mentioned earlier in the week, there is a long excerpt in the American Lawyer and Julie Fleming Brown just posted a very nice review on her blog Life at the Bar.  As Aric Press — Editor of the American Lawyer — has written, part of law firm firm management entails keeping overbearing and at times nasty attorneys under control, and if necessary, expelling the most destructive of the bunch even if they are billing a lot of hours. And as I like to say, one of the keys to law firm management is figuring out how to turn your assholes on and off, because after all, one of the reasons that people hire lawyers to be tough and nasty –to do their dirty work.  But people who are best suited for such work aren’t always capable of turning off their venom when they deal with staff members and fellow attorneys.

The No Asshole Rule also has implications for client work.  Certainly, people who engage in sexual harassment and in physical abuse are properly labelled assholes, but I am starting to learn that there is growing concern about what I would call "equal opportunity assholes," people who demean people routinely regardless of race,gender, age and so on. Indeed, check out this article about the risks of relying on the "nasty but neutral" defense that I found on Littler’s web site (they are a national employment law firm). 

As the summary warns:

While intuitively appealing, the nasty-but-neutral defense has limited
utility. Employers should be fairly cautious about relying on evidence
of non-biased behavior to defend litigation or to dismiss internal
complaints. One missed racial epithet or sexually suggestive remark may
convert nasty-but-neutral evidence into a plain nasty verdict. Littler
reviews recent verdicts and the instances where this defense is best
used.

The upshot is that Dr. House might be in trouble!  And for the rest of us, being an equal opportunity asshole may not longer be a defense. Indeed, as I’ve written about before, there are some countries that already have legislation about workplace bullying and there have been some bills introduced recently in the United States.