BOSTON — An internal Bingham McCutchen e-mail disputes some claims made by a former associate who recently filed a sex discrimination complaint against the Boston-based firm with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
The e-mail also discussed the firm’s personal safety training sessions at the Boston office, in the wake of the former associate’s reports to the firm that she was drugged at a firm holiday party in December.
Michelle Moor, the former associate who joined Bingham in September 2007 after law school and has since resigned, filed the complaint on May 6. Moor questioned the firm’s response to the drugging incident and also claimed that firm responded too slowly to an employee’s boasts during an off-site January dinner that he liked having sex with women after giving them the so-called date rape drug Rohypnol or “roofies.”
Moor said she asked the firm to warn firm employees, both after the party and the dinner, about how to avoid inadvertent drugging.
The internal e-mail said that Moor was initially reluctant for the firm to conduct a full-scale investigation.
“Our initial desire was to begin an immediate investigation, however, Ms. Moor asked us to refrain because she did not want her privacy compromised and because she felt that it would be difficult to determine the identity of the offending party at such a public venue,” wrote the firm’s general counsel William G. Southard in the e-mail.
The e-mail also disputed Moor’s claim that senior female associate, whom she told about the December party incident, told Moor she had previously been drugged and raped by a Bingham employee at an event the prior year.
Southard wrote that the associate recently came forward and that the firm has “learned Ms. Moor’s information is fundamentally inaccurate.”
Moor’s attorney Rachel Stroup, of Zalkind, Rodriguez, Lunt & Duncan in Boston, could not be reached to comment about the e-mail.
In earlier comments, she said Moor filed the complaint to encourage Bingham to “respond to and address some pretty serious workplace problems.”
“This whole experience has been hugely disillusioning and upsetting to Ms. Moor, and we hope that justice will be done,” Stroup said.
Moor, who reported having two glasses of wine at the December luncheon party, went to an emergency room that evening because she felt disoriented.
The hospital found the anti-seizure medication Tegretol, which causes memory loss when mixed with alcohol, in her system.
After the January dinner, Moor told the firm she feared for her safety because the employee who made the remarks worked “three doors down” from her office and was working on a project with her. Moor claimed the firm’s offer to move her to another floor away from other litigators would have negatively affected her career opportunities.
Bingham took Moor’s report “extremely seriously” and is disappointed by her decision to resign, said spokeswoman Claire Papanastasiou.
Papanastasiou said Bingham believes there is no merit to the claims and that “at all times it acted diligently, responsibly and fairly in connection with information it received including gathering relevant facts and conducting an appropriate and thorough investigation.” During the investigation, the firm couldn’t determine who drugged Moor or whether the source of the drug “was associated with the firm in any way,” she said.
The firm has hired an expert to develop and provide personal-safety training to its employees.
“We believe that this training program is a productive step in addressing personal safety for us all,” Papanastasiou said.
Moor left Bingham in February for Kotin, Crabtree & Strong, a smaller Boston firm where she previously interned. She said Bingham’s actions caused her economic harm because her new firm pays a lower salary.
The employee was also terminated in February, according to Moor’s complaint.
