A former associate at Ivie McNeill Wyatt Purcell & Diggs in Los Angeles is suing the firm for its handling of sexual harassment allegations against a name partner.

In a suit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday, Chaena Dade alleges that partner Rodney Diggs exposed himself to her and repeatedly propositioned her for oral sex in May 2019.

When Dade reported the "creepy" and "extremely inappropriate" behavior, she asserts that office management told her she might have to find another job if she couldn't work with Diggs, since he was the "future of this firm." Due to the firm's response, Dade felt forced to resign, according to her attorneys.

The conduct fostered a "hostile, offensive, oppressive, and intimidating work environment," wrote Kelli Burritt and Rachael Sauer of Winer, Burritt & Scott in Woodland Hills, California, in the complaint.

Diggs and the firm did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment Friday afternoon. Diggs became a name partner by August 2019, the lawsuit states.

Dade is bringing nearly a dozen causes of action against the firm including quid pro quo sexual harassment, hostile work environment; retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress; battery; false imprisonment; and gender violence.

The lawsuit contends that Diggs first texted the former associate at a firm-sponsored event saying, "Man we should make out now. Lol everyone downstairs!" and referred to himself as "#creepy#supervisor." However, the complaint alleges that the harassment culminated during a work trip to Italy.

During the trip, Dade claims Diggs took away her phone for texting her boyfriend too much and tried to convince her to stay with him at his Airbnb instead of her hotel.

After the two grabbed lunch during the trip, Diggs reportedly asked Dade to let him perform oral sex on her. She refused his advances, according to the complaint, and then went to the restroom. When she returned, she could not find him and went back to her hotel.

Around 2 or 3 a.m., Dade said she had awakened to find Diggs and two apparent hotel employees standing in her hotel room. Diggs appeared drunk and said he had no way of contacting her since he had her phone, the lawsuit alleges.

Dade claims that Diggs insisted she walk him back to his Airbnb, and on the way back, she again refused more of his advances for oral sex.

When they got to the Airbnb, Dade asserts that she had to use the bathroom, and when she went to exit the restroom, Diggs was blocking the door.

"He was completely naked from the waist down, and was stroking his penis. Plaintiff screamed, turned around, locked the door, and shouted for [Diggs] to get dressed immediately," Dade's lawyers wrote. Diggs allegedly said if she wouldn't let him perform oral sex on her, "will you at least watch me while I stroke it?"

Dade reports that she remained in the bathroom, with the faucet on to cover up any noises, until she thought she heard snoring. She found Diggs asleep on the bed, naked from the waist down, according to the complaint, and she grabbed her cellphone and went back to her hotel room.

The next day, Diggs told Dade that he was having an affair with another female attorney at the firm. "[Diggs] then told plaintiff that, now that he had told her that, they had to have sex so he would have something to hold over her since she now knew that secret about him," the complaint states. "Plaintiff told [Diggs] that their relationship would never be anything but professional. [Diggs] disagreed, and reiterated that they had to sleep together now that she knew his secret."

After finding out that the client Dade and Diggs flew to Italy to depose was going to be in the U.S. the next week, Dade said she believed Diggs orchestrated the unnecessary trip to get her alone and away from the office.

When she returned from the trip, Dade said she told the firm's office manager, Luci Hamilton, that she could no longer work with Diggs. "Hamilton told plaintiff she might need to find another job if she couldn't find a way to work with [Diggs] because he was the 'future of this firm,'" the filing states.

She told Hamilton that "she was uncomfortable and felt scared and violated," and Hamilton allegedly said she would need specific details to take to the partners. "Plaintiff said she wasn't comfortable with that option because telling the partners—in a room full of men with [Diggs] present—made her feel like she wouldn't be believed," according to the complaint.

Dade's lawyers assert that the firm never investigated her complaints.

Erika Scott, managing partner of Winer Burritt in Oakland, said it's a tough decision when a law firm tries to come out against another law firm. "But we have to hold our own industry accountable, not just at the big corporations that we're used to suing."

In an interview Friday afternoon, Dade said she needed to bring the suit to prevent the same thing from happening to someone else.

"It's an all-Black firm and Black women attorneys are far and few between, and the effects that it had on me—feeling completely pushed out of the community, questioning if I should even be an attorney anymore—I don't want what happened to me to continue to happen to other people," Dade said.

When she found out Diggs was promoted to name partner three months after she reported the allegations, Dade said she was shocked. "It made me feel small and so unimportant, almost spit on."

Dade now practices law for a nonprofit on dependency court cases, but she said speaking up felt like career suicide.

"It feels so unfair that I have to make this decision in the first place," she said. "It feels like I'm shut out of the community."

Dade said a large part of the decision to shift from civil litigation to dependency court was because she didn't feel ready to go back to the civil courthouse. A few months after the alleged harassment, she said she passed Diggs in the hallway of civil court, and she had a panic attack in the court bathroom. "If I didn't want the anxiety of running into my attacker, if I don't want to deal with these feelings, then I can't practice civil law," she said.

In the tight-knit Black legal community in Los Angeles, she said she feels like he's big and she's small, an idea that was reinforced when "I spoke up, and they added his name to the plaque."