Message from the Chair

• Citation: Vol. 30 No. 4
• Publication year: 2016
• Author: By Amy Oppenheimer

Message from the Chair

By Amy Oppenheimer

Amy Oppenheimer is an attorney and retired administrative law judge whose law firm focuses on workplace investigations. She has written a book about investigations, testifies as an expert witness on employer practices in responding to and investigating harassment, and is the founder and past-president of the board of the Association of Workplace Investigators (AWI). Ms. Oppenheimer has trained employers and employees throughout the country in preventing and investigating workplace harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, and on understanding and eliminating implicit bias.

As labor and employment lawyers, we work in a field of law that is vast, interesting, and constantly changing. A significant percentage of cases filed in civil court are employment related - about twenty percent in federal court, and more than that in state court - and many of the appellate court decisions in California and in federal court are in the labor and employment field. With over 7,000 members, our section is the third largest of the State Bar sections. The work we do is constantly in the news. And lately, I do mean constantly.

The U.S. Supreme Court defined sexual harassment more than thirty years ago, and California mandated training on sexual harassment for supervisors and managers more than ten years ago. Yet, every day we wake up to headlines about the latest smart and powerful person whose career has tanked due to engaging in inappropriate workplace behaviors. Usually, but not always, these are men.

Why is there still so much workplace harassment and, more importantly, why do we continue to do such a poor job of responding to it? While it does make for interesting work, can't we do a better job of preventing problems and responding swiftly and appropriately when they occur? There will always be human frailties and foibles - but so many, and at such revered institutions? As someone who was bringing sexual harassment cases over thirty years ago, I would have thought that by now we, as a society, would have moved on to a different problem, but apparently not. That not-so-unique blend of power, arrogance and (I often find) insecurity, when allowed to flourish unchecked in the workplace, has managed to keep many of us gainfully employed.

When I litigated sexual harassment cases on behalf of plaintiffs, I saw things from my clients' perspectives. I saw the harm suffered by the indignity of going to work to do a job and being treated as an...