The criminal case against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has resulted in two guilty verdicts of criminal sexual act and third-degree rape.

But it also offers professionals an important—albeit extreme—glimpse into the "new norm" that's emerged in the workplace since #MeToo, a social movement that gained global traction after a New York Times investigation into alleged harassment by Weinstein.

The movement gave women around the world a public platform to voice allegations of misconduct against powerful men. As a result, 2020 is a perilous time for men in the workplace.

University of Miami law professor Jan Jacobowitz specializes in legal ethics and says things can get messier still when one steps away from what were serious criminal allegations against Weinstein involving literal assault or rape, to look at more subjective, nuanced types of sexual harassment.

What might constitute a compliment for one woman might feel like sexual harassment to another, for example.

"In the spectrum of offensive comments, it's a very broad spectrum, and when you superimpose the spectrum of individual sensitivity, the range of it, that's where I think those don't line up," Jacobowitz said. "As a society we're attempting to define a new norm, where we put those spectrums on top of one another to create a new norm of what's generally acceptable and generally unacceptable."

Related story: Harvey Weinstein Found Guilty of 3rd-Degree Rape and Criminal Sexual Act

Not unlike women burning their bras and other items to protest a Miss America beauty pageant, or men burning their draft cards to protest the Vietnam War, the #MeToo movement, in Jacobowitz's view, has attempted change the fabric of society in a radical way. And it's resulted in a "sort of drastic time period."

"Whenever there's a change in society, in order for there to be social change, the pendulum swings very far to whether it's the right or the left," Jacobowitz said.

With this shift, and the extreme and high-profile cases like Weinstein's that have accompanied it, has come what Jacobowitz describes as necessary but "unfortunate victims" of the pendulum swing, who weren't sexual predators in a criminal sense, but who were publicly vilified over allegations of inappropriate or tone-deaf comments.

"The pendulum swung very far, so there probably are people being caught up in this who could otherwise be rehabilitated without suffering the loss of career or their job, because of Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby or some of the huge names, and on the flip side some of the very high -profile women who have come forward," Jacobowitz said. "I think that it's a very sticky wicket for men right now, and they need to be careful how they come across. … The pendulum will swing back toward center, where there is, maybe, a more reasoned approach to not throwing everyone in the same pot and meting out justice in a way that may feel more equitable to some."

Jacobowitz says that's why it's all the more important for workplaces to be devoid of comments about people's appearances, even if it's a well-meaning compliment.

"There's really no need or no purpose served in making comments like that," Jacobowitz said. "I think you can create a collegial workplace in other ways. You could bring in popcorn on Thursdays, you could talk about the Miami Heat, you could talk about the Miami City ballet. If you want to have conversations to create a camaraderie, it really doesn't need to be personal."

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Say nothing

Commercial litigator Don Hayden of Mark Migdal & Hayden in Miami is working on a case involving allegations of sexual harassment from a female graduate student against a tenured university professor.

He said the #MeToo movement has prompted him to think twice before his interactions with subordinates, and before sending emails or texts, in an effort to ensure nothing gets lost or wrongly interpreted in the printed word.

"It's never a good idea to be a lout or cheeky in the workplace with subordinates. Off-color jokes and the like always will fall flat when they're taken out of context," Hayden said. "It's not what you intended, it's what was communicated and how the other person felt or feels about your activity."

As for office romances between supervisors and subordinates? Never a good idea, the way Hayden sees it, since what might start as consensual could become unclear down the line.

"It's difficult to unwind a sexual relationship within a work relationship once it's started, and say what's consensual and what's not," he said.

Kluger, Kaplan, Silverman, Katzen & Levine partner Michael Landen specializes in commercial litigation and labor and employment issues, and says he's overheard some discussions where men have asked, 'Well, now what? I can't tell somebody they look nice?' or 'Did you get a haircut?' "

Landen's answer: No.

Because in his view, saying nothing is the best approach.

" The reality is, the standard is whether there's unwelcome conduct and whether that conduct relates to gender, for example. That's such a subjective thing, whether it's unwelcome. It's not up to me to say, 'Well, anybody would have wanted to hear my positive comment about your hair looking good.' Not if it's creepy," Landen said. "Most times, obviously, males would not typically say to another male something like that, so don't say it to a female."

Landen says it's more important now than ever for law firms and other companies to have written policies and handbooks advising staff about what's appropriate and what isn't.

"You have to kind of look at the environment and assume that everybody is there to work," Landen said. "If you happen to have friends there, obviously, it's great, but you can't forget that, at the end of the day it's a workplace. You have to function professionally."

Landen says one positive of extreme cases like Weinstein's being in the public spotlight are that they can cause anyone who's made inappropriate comments in the past to reevaluate themselves.

"To the extent people have lost sight of how the interactions in the workplace should be, hopefully they're reminded by this example of how they should be and how they shouldn't," Landen said. "And it's really good in the sense that it's a positive thing for women to be able to shed light on this and hopefully not have society downplay it or look at it and say, 'They're exaggerating,' or 'This is an important guy so we really can look the other way.' "

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Power

Before jurors acquitted Weinstein of the more serious charges of predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape, his attorney Donna Rotunno showed jurors emails from some accusers that could be described as warm or even flirtatious.

For complex commercial litigator Adrian Arkin of Mintz Truppman in North Miami, those emails demonstrate the textbook example of a superior taking advantage of a power imbalance.

"Power is power," Arkin said. "Harvey especially knew the power he had, and that's what clearly turned him on. He did not want women who were on an equal level. He clearly chose women who would be with him because of his power. That he was able to manipulate these powerless women, or that a powerless person would try to justify what happened to them after, doesn't mean it wasn't abusive."

Likewise, Jacobowitz feels the emails illuminate what is a particularly gray area in order to demonstrate the realities of a power imbalance.

"I think that as evidence it could be a bit confusing, but I don't think it's inconsistent with suffering sexual harassment or rape," Jacobowitz said. "It was understandable and strategic for the defense to introduce those, but if I was sitting as a juror, that, for me, personally, wouldn't do much to dilute the allegations if I otherwise thought the evidence supported claims of harassment and assault."

For Arkin, an individual criminal case matters much less than the big picture.

"I think the larger issue in the legal world is the 'sexist culture' that happens when misogyny is so ingrained at a firm or a place that there is no breaking the cycle," Arkin said. "When women are treated as 'less valuable' then women become 'less valuable' inside that world, and they get blamed for it. It's utterly dysfunctional. Of course, that dysfunction causes the power dynamic that the predator loves and seeks out."

In Arkin's view, the best way to eradicate unequal treatment of male and female lawyers would be to make disparity of pay a bar violation, and to give diverse panels more control over employment in large firms than individual partners.

Weinstein could face up to 25 years in prison. He will be sentenced March 11.

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