Firm Promotes Lawyer After Reprimand
Holland & Knight makes the lawyer chief operating partner just months after he was ordered to attend a sexual harassment seminar.A Tampa lawyer has been promoted to the top ranks of Holland & Knight just months after an internal investigation recommended he be reprimanded for harassing young female colleagues.
Douglas A. Wright, 44, is now chief operating partner of the powerful 1,250-lawyer firm, a position that ranks third on the corporate ladder and puts him atop all business operations, including the firm's human resources department. . . .
[L]ast year, nine female lawyers at Holland's Tampa office complained that Wright was a bully who constantly demeaned women with sexually suggestive comments, according to confidential company documents obtained by the St. Petersburg Times. According to the documents, he badgered the women with pointed questions about their sex lives, sometimes in front of other lawyers at the firm, and insisted that people feel his biceps or "pipes."
"Pipes"? Details here from the St. Petersburg Times. This can't be a good move for Holland & Knight, which is among the top firms in the business of defending employers in discrimination and harassment cases.
UPDATE (4/11): Wright has stepped down. (via the St. Petersburg Times)