I’m in a ▮▮▮ ▮▮▮ team in ▮▮▮. The ▮▮▮ partner (female) of my team gives excessively favourable treatment to a ▮▮▮ associate (male). This includes prioritising him for the best matters, always writing articles with only him, and most surprisingly putting him up for a ▮▮▮ promotion ▮▮▮, even though he doesn’t have the required number of years of law firm experience. He is always sucking upto her, is always at her beck and call, and seems to share a deeper relationship with her beyond work. Everyone in the team notices it, and thinks there is something shady happening behind the scenes, but doesn’t have the spine to speak up. How do I deal with this?

Look, focus on your work - and you will do well. Think of articles to write, write them, and ask the partner if it is good and they can Co-publish with you. Always necessary to hustle. Don’t sacrifice your growth for some petty politics. Even if this alluded favouritism is real, the partner will never stop your growth if you do a stand up job. Why care about the others?

Here are key elements of PoSH training regarding dating a supervisor:

- Conflict of Interest & Disclosure: Organisations often require employees to formally disclose relationships with supervisors to manage potential conflicts of interest, such as favouritism in promotions, appraisals, or project allocation.
- The Power Dynamic: A relationship between a manager and a subordinate is risky because the power imbalance makes it difficult to ascertain if the relationship is truly voluntary. If the relationship sours, it could lead to accusations of harassment if one party feels pressured to engage in the relationship to secure their job or career progression.
- Consent and Workplace Boundaries: PoSH training emphasises that consent can be withdrawn at any time. If one party tries to end the relationship, any continued advances by the boss can constitute sexual harassment.
- Professional Conduct: Employees in a relationship should not engage in intimate behaviour on office premises, nor use office resources for personal communication.
- Consequences of a Breakup: The end of a relationship, if handled unprofessionally, can lead to a hostile work environment, a major focus of PoSH investigations.
- Managerial Responsibility: Managers are responsible for maintaining a professional environment and may be held to a higher standard of conduct by the Internal Complaints Committee (IC) if the relationship results in accusations of harassment.

Even equity partners have to hide relationships that dont conform to firm policy in my firm, especially those within a reporting line. EPs must uphold firm values, if firm policy is to be strong.

Example 1: My firm JSA has strong rules regarding things like this to prevent upsetting teams, unlike some other firms which open allow office dalliances, to cut attrition.

No Golden handcuffs of a different kind.

Example 2: In JSA if Partner married inside, one left. The corporate head in mumbai married someone inside who was an SA and then the SA / wife, left the firm 'as per' policy.

Internal liasons are frowned upon in JSA.

Example 3: In JSA newly hired teams who had family in the team could not be onboarded together. These things would never be permitted in a strong HR environment.

Star teams does not offset the firm policy

Ultimately, things like these matter for team cohesion in the long run. Firms like JSA thrive because these are rigorously implemented and we do not have these issues.

Don't, as long as you are not directly being harmed by it. Just put your head down and carry on, and collect evidence for later. If you are being harmed, then leave after a period (after having collected evidence), and join some place else. Once you are in a stable position, name and shame, with videos and photographs to prove it.

Most of the responses here are of such awful quality that I sometimes wonder if this website's majority demographic is really people who are actually lawyers, or people who would have liked to be lawyers, failed, are stuck in some non-law career they don't like and are coming to this website to live their wet dreams. I can totally believe that the OP is a lawyer, but the rest of you guys... are just... I don't even want to say.

It is unfortunate that you are targeting a senior woman partner without any substantial evidence. This is what women have to face. If someone is competent and doing their job, it is still the woman who is being blamed and no less an insinuating allegation of sex for work. This reflects poorly on you and your competence. Further, there are known mechanisms in every top firm which actually work if there is an issue. Here it seems that you are overstating out of jealousy. If she is promoting him by writing articles, it will be because this person would be writing good drafts. A partner will not have the time to do first drafts. Also, if you want to write, please write and don’t crib. His availability reflects his dedication to work and not an affair as you are suggesting. Your mind is trash, which is adequately reflected in your comment. Your competence and character don’t seem better either. Please work and let your work talk. If you were so good, you will alternative job offers but since you are a crying little canine, grow a pair and stop giving a bad name to men who work.

Calling something ‘shady’ just because you don’t understand it is a bit telling. Partners don’t risk their reputation on people they don’t trust. Maybe focus on why that trust exists instead of speculating about someone else’s success. Every firm has someone who complains about ‘favouritism’ instead of asking why they’re not the one being chosen. This sounds like that person. Get a life and some help!

Hello, many men are accused every day with little to no evidence. Some had the gall to say that we all should do away with the due process during #metoo. In light of that, not having to face the same level of scrutiny that men have always faced when in positions of power by women seems, concerningly, yet another privilege.

So throwing around words like 'patriarchal insecurity' and moralising after calling me an irredeemable dolt (with horrible spelling) doesn't make your position on this issue any better. Rather, it just deflects from the real issues. We have all seen enough 'where there is smoke, there is fire' comments from women. Women set those standards. Here, someone has spoken about the smoke. Look for the fire.

Your rush to defend the unnamed woman in this unnamed team without an inch of uncovering what may have happened speaks volumes on how you would adjudicate gendered disputes. It's prejudging it. In simple terms, women too should face a process of scrutiny rather than squirming out of their responsibility. All of this should actually trigger a talk with HR. Again, women set those standards.

Finally, someone with power over someone else and the larger team is, by default, to be held to a higher standard. The optics of a team and disaffection shown by a team should be something a partner should have a reasonable idea about. That comes with the territory of being a partner. At least a good one.

Men too find the women who prevaricate when the question of double standards come up equally repulsive. I am glad most men aren't anybodys fools anymore. Everyone sees these sermons as the self serving garbage that it is and tosses it in the mental dustbin.

Having to read what is just dressed up victimhood when what fuels this is just simple craven ambition with zero accountability when in power - gives most of us a headache. Just another poor excuse of an argument.

Listen - we noticed how how you systematically pushed the conversation towards women's discrimination in a thread that began with women engaging in questionable conduct. Its a classic but its sure getting old.

Your response has been nothing short of cover up and another ignonimous look away. Most of us are tired of this uninteligent shtick. Too bad it barely works and glad some women here called it out.

You should be politician, but then I guess you probably are where you stand right now.

I've seen senior women grooming male associates in office. Mind you, not grooming in a professional sense. Some or the men (idiots) come and tell us and we have to explain to them the manipulation and abuse they just underwent.

One of the things I have noticed about women in high places is how similar they are to men when it comes men in terms of abusive tendencies. They are way better at manipulation which often cover their tracks better. Whereas the same is brazen with the men.

This is something which I noticed a lot more after all Epstein bruahaah. Woman are quite happy to get ahead by any means. Did you see that Goldman lawyer's mails? A lot of women's solidarity is window dressing. Its out of pocket when the real issues for women are on the line.

So cut the crap madam. This is coming from a woman.

The way you have responded shows that we lawyers are no less partisan and certainly no more rational than the rest of the society - at least, not in India. Shut the law schools down. Cut the jobs of the law professors, and those of the university academic administrators of the law specialist universities and the traditionalist university law departments, and of the housing administrators of all these places, and everyone else associated with this total waste of Indian hard-earned taxpayers' money. End this miserable farce, here, now, in front of us all. We haven't achieved Aristotle's criteria to study and maturely reflect on political science, and if this thread is any indication, we never will.

Ah, the age old "I'm a woman" to justify unprofessional crass conduct. Its the same conduct that women have called out for ages when done by an older male. We are sick of these double standards and toxic feminism. Unprofessional behaviour deserves to be called out regardless of sex.