Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board v. Abraham K. Watkins ( 2020 )

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA
No. 19–1438
Filed June 19, 2020
IOWA SUPREME COURT ATTORNEY DISCIPLINARY BOARD,
Appellee,
vs.
ABRAHAM K. WATKINS,
Appellant.
On appeal from the report of the Iowa Supreme Court Grievance
Commission.
The grievance commission recommends the suspension of an
attorney’s license for thirty days based on the attorney’s sexual
harassment. LICENSE SUSPENDED.
Alfredo Parrish and Gina Messamer of the Parrish Law Firm,
Des Moines, for appellant.
Tara van Brederode and Amanda K. Robinson (until withdrawal) and
Allison A. Schmidt, Des Moines, for appellee.
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CHRISTENSEN, Chief Justice.
This case involves an Iowa attorney who was nearly removed from
elected office as the Van Buren county attorney because of his sexual
harassment. A district court judge ordered him removed. This court
reversed the district court because of the high legal burden for removal
under Iowa Code section 66.1A. Subsequently, the Iowa Supreme Court
Attorney Disciplinary Board (Board) charged the attorney with a violation
of Iowa Rule of Professional Conduct 32:8.4(g), which prohibits an attorney
from engaging in sexual harassment, and recommended a six-month
suspension. The parties reached a factual stipulation, agreeing that the
charged violation occurred. The Iowa Supreme Court Grievance
Commission (commission) recommended the attorney’s license be
suspended for thirty days.
The attorney challenges the commission’s recommended sanction
and requests a public reprimand instead. Upon our de novo review, we
conclude that the attorney violated rule 32:8.4(g). We disagree with the
commission’s recommended sanction of thirty days and suspend the
attorney’s license to practice law for an indefinite period with no possibility
of reinstatement for six months from the filing of this opinion.
I. Factual and Procedural Background.
Abraham Watkins graduated from law school in 2004. He was not
a licensed attorney and primarily supported himself by playing poker until
he and his wife, Renee, decided to move to Iowa in 2012. Watkins was
sworn into the Iowa bar in May 2013 and began practicing law for the first
time when he opened a solo practice in Keosauqua, Iowa. Watkins
operated this practice out of an office located on the main level of his two-
story family home with the assistance of Renee, who served as his office
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manager. In September 2014, Watkins hired Jane Doe,1 who was then
twenty years old, as a legal assistant. Two months later, Watkins was
elected as the Van Buren county attorney, and he assumed office on
January 1, 2015.
The Van Buren county attorney is a part-time position. Thus,
Watkins split his time between his work as the Van Buren county attorney
and his private law office, operating both out of his home. Renee and Doe
also began splitting their time between the county attorney’s office and
Watkins’s private law office. As Doe’s work expanded, she began working
longer hours and performing personal tasks for Watkins such as picking
up his medical prescriptions, ordering and retrieving his lunch, and
babysitting his children. Doe would also socialize with the Watkins family,
occasionally eating dinner with them and taking trips with them.
In April 2015, Watkins hired a female part-time assistant county
attorney (ACA). Watkins, Renee, Doe, and the ACA all continued to work
out of the main level of Watkins’s family home with the approval of the
county board of supervisors. During this time, Watkins consumed alcohol
heavily outside of the workplace. Tensions continued to escalate in the
office between staff members, especially as Watkins and the ACA disagreed
on work matters and Renee grew tired of Watkins’s drinking habits.
Watkins would frequently argue with the ACA and Renee in the office.
In August 2016, Renee left with their children to visit her family in
North Carolina because she was frustrated with Watkins’s drinking habits.
Watkins took this as a sign that he needed help and was later hospitalized
for his alcohol abuse. He later contacted Hugh Grady from the Iowa
Lawyers Assistance Program, who recommended various steps for Watkins
1We do not refer to Watkins’s victims by name out of respect for their privacy and
a desire to preserve their anonymity.
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to take to address his alcohol abuse. Watkins took these steps and has
maintained his sobriety since August 2016.
On August 9, approximately two years after she began working for
Watkins, Doe submitted a letter of resignation to Watkins, resigning from
all of her responsibilities as his legal assistant. She stated in her letter, “I
have learned many things in my time here, including what makes a hostile
work environment.” She also wrote, “Due to aberrant behavior and a
hostile work environment, I no longer can continue my position and feel
confident about coming into work.”
Additionally, Doe prepared a list of complaints regarding Watkins
that totaled approximately fifty-five examples over her two years of working
with Watkins. Many of these complaints involved her frustration with the
menial work tasks Watkins gave her and the way he made her feel inferior
to him. These complaints included “criticizing me in front of customers,”
“constant yelling between him [and] Renee,” “the importance of him [and]
not us,” and “[he] very often expected me to figure [work] out then remind
me I didn’t go to law school.”
Several of the complaints involved the sexual-harassment
allegations at issue in this case. Watkins appeared before Doe on at least
two occasions wearing only his boxer briefs. He told Doe that “he just
wished he had a wife that had sex with him all the time,” and he was glad
he kept naked pictures of his former girlfriends. Watkins made a sexually
driven “joke” about a floor cleaner called “Bona” in the presence of Doe
and the women who were cleaning his office.
In reference to a female client, Watkins told Doe, “Man, I wouldn’t
want to see her naked.” In discussing a courthouse employee, Watkins
told Doe that he needed to see if she “wore a padded bra or if her boobs
were really that big.” He referred to a local attorney as “T.Queef,” which is
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a term that describes the emission of air from the vagina. Moreover,
Watkins told Doe that her “boobs [were] distracting him” and that she
should wear that same shirt if she “ever went clubbing.” He also asked
Doe on multiple occasions if “her vagina was still broke” after she missed
work for a gynecology appointment.
Watkins also showed Doe and the ACA private images of his wife.
Specifically, he showed Doe a picture on his cell phone of his wife’s vagina.
He also showed her a video of his wife squirting breast milk in the back
seat of Doe’s vehicle. Watkins kept nude photographs of his wife on his
computer, and he showed the ACA one of these photos in which his wife
was pregnant, nude, and covered in blue paint.
The ACA forwarded Doe’s letter of resignation to the Van Buren
county auditor, who then notified the Van Buren County Board of
Supervisors. Following the board’s investigation and two closed sessions
to discuss the allegations and how to handle them, the board filed a
petition in district court seeking to remove Watkins from office pursuant
to Iowa Code sections 66.11 and 331.754(4) (2015). The removal petition
cited five separate grounds, including one ground that he created a “hostile
work environment” that involved sexual harassment.2
The district court issued its ruling on January 3, 2017, following a
trial that occurred intermittently over the course of several months. The
district court ordered Watkins’s removal from the Office of Van Buren
County Attorney based solely upon the sexual-harassment claim, crediting
the testimony of Doe and the ACA, in addition to the testimony of other
2In addition to the sexual harassment allegation, the petition alleged that Watkins
supplied a minor with alcohol in violation of Iowa Code sections 123.47(1) and
123.47(2)(a), engaged in retaliation, accepted three private-practice cases that created a
conflict of interest with his position as county attorney, and had been intoxicated in
violation of Iowa Code section 66.1A(6). The district court’s removal ruling was based
solely on the sexual-harassment ground in the petition.
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witnesses who heard Watkins make inappropriate statements of a sexual
nature and whom Watkins offered to show naked pictures of his wife.
The district court concluded Watkins engaged in misconduct or
maladministration by regularly committing sexual harassment. It also
determined that this misconduct was willful. The district court reasoned,
Mr. Watkins’s inappropriate conduct was pervasive and
existed over a significant period of time thereby negating any
claim of mistake or an isolated lapse of judgment. His actions
were clearly intentional. As a lawyer he knew better but
continued to subject his two young female employees to
sexually related banter, and in some instances images, that
have no place in the work setting. This is especially true for a
county attorney’s office. Given the extent and stunning
nature of his conduct one can, and in the Court’s opinion
must, infer that he was acting with a bad or evil purpose.
Therefore, the State has established that his conduct was
willful.
Watkins appealed the decision, and our court retained the appeal.
In a 4–3 decision with no majority opinion, our court reversed the district
court’s removal decision due to the high burden required to remove an
elected official from office. See State v. Watkins, 914 N.W.2d 827, 847
(Iowa 2018) (plurality opinion); id. at 848 (Appel, J., concurring specially).
Consequently, Watkins was restored to the part-time position of
Van Buren county attorney. The voters of Van Buren County did not
reelect him to the position in 2018. Watkins maintains his private law
office in Keosauqua, although he lives in Des Moines and commutes to
Keosauqua as necessary.
The Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board filed a
complaint against Watkins on December 18, 2018. The Board’s complaint
alleged Watkins violated Iowa Rule of Professional Conduct 32:8.4(g) by
engaging in sexual harassment in the practice of law based on the
incidents at issue in Watkins’s removal action. The parties entered into a
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stipulation of facts and agreed to the rule violation. They also stipulated
to the admission of an expanded record, including transcripts of testimony
offered in the removal proceeding.
The commission issued its findings and recommendation on
August 30, 2019, in which it found the violation of rule 32:8.4(g) was
factually supported. The commission recommended that we suspend
Watkins’s license for thirty days. In doing so, the commission found the
following mitigating factors: Watkins’s lack of prior disciplinary action, his
cooperation with the disciplinary process, the steps he took to address his
alcoholism, and the counseling efforts he engaged in aimed at addressing
the behaviors underlying his ethical violation. The commission also found
aggravating factors existed in that Watkins’s behavior was not confined to
an isolated incident, his harassment took place at the victims’ place of
work under Watkins’s supervision, some of Watkins’s harassment took
place while he was the Van Buren county attorney, and there was a power
imbalance between Watkins and Doe. On appeal, Watkins requests a
public reprimand in lieu of a suspension, while the Board recommends a
six-month suspension.
II. Standard of Review.
We generally review attorney disciplinary proceedings de novo. Iowa
Supreme Ct. Att’y Disciplinary Bd. v. Stansberry, 922 N.W.2d 591, 593
(Iowa 2019). The Board must prove any alleged misconduct by a
convincing preponderance of the evidence, which “is less than proof
beyond a reasonable doubt, but more than the preponderance standard
required in a civil case.” Id. “[T]he parties are bound by the stipulated
facts, ‘which we interpret with reference to their subject matter and in light
of the surrounding circumstances and the whole record.’ ” Iowa Supreme
Ct. Att’y Disciplinary Bd. v. Nine, 920 N.W.2d 825, 828 (Iowa 2018) (quoting
8
Iowa Supreme Ct. Att’y Disciplinary Bd. v. Johnson, 884 N.W.2d 772, 777
(Iowa 2016)). However, “we are not bound by the attorney’s stipulation to
an ethical violation or the commission’s recommended sanction.” Id.
III. Ethical Violation.
Iowa Rule of Professional Conduct 32:8.4(g) establishes that it is
professional misconduct for an attorney to “engage in sexual harassment
or other unlawful discrimination in the practice of law.” Iowa R. Prof’l
Conduct 32:8.4(g). We define “sexual harassment” broadly, and it
“encompasses ‘any physical or verbal act of a sexual nature that has no
legitimate place in a legal setting.’ ” Stansberry, 922 N.W.2d at 597
(quoting Iowa Supreme Ct. Att’y Disciplinary Bd. v. Moothart, 860 N.W.2d
598, 604 (Iowa 2015)). We do not require the sexually harassing conduct
to be unwelcome or “more than an occasional stray comment.” Moothart,
860 N.W.2d at 604. An attorney may violate this rule “even if there is no
attorney–client relationship between the lawyer and the person subject to
sexual harassment, as long as the attorney is engaged in the practice of
law.” Id. at 603. This includes the sexual harassment of “witnesses, court
personnel, law partners, law-office employees, or other third parties that
come into contact with a lawyer engaged in the practice of law.” Id.
Our past attorney disciplinary cases regarding sexual harassment
have generally involved attorneys who engage in behaviors that could be
considered “come-ons”—conduct like making sexual advances, requesting
sexual favors, or engaging in other acts of an overtly sexual nature. See,
e.g., id. at 602–04. Nevertheless, sexual harassment also encompasses
what could be considered “put downs,” in the form of gender harassment
that is aimed at degrading or demeaning women, often to maintain gender
hierarchy. Louise F. Fitzgerald & Lilia M. Cortina, Sexual Harassment in
Work Organizations: A View From the Twenty-First Century, in 1 APA
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Handbook of Psychology of Women 6–7 (Cheryl B. Travis & Jacquelyn W.
White, eds., 2018) [hereinafter Fitzgerald & Cortina]; see Brian Soucek &
Vicki Schultz, Sexual Harassment by Any Other Name, 2019 U. Chi. Legal
F. 227, 231–33 [hereinafter Soucek & Schultz].
The “ ‘[g]arden variety’ gender harassment . . . includes ‘woman
bashing’ jokes, insults about [women’s] incompetence, the irrelevance or
sexual unattractiveness of older women, and comments that women have
no place in certain kinds of jobs.” Fitzgerald & Cortina at 7. In a “more
pernicious form,” it includes “referring to women by degraded names for
body parts, pornographic images, [and] crude comments about female
sexuality or sexual activity.” Id. This discrimination does not require an
individual woman to serve as its target or unwanted sexual overtures, nor
does it need to be explicitly linked to any job or consideration. Id. at 7–8,
26.
Watkins’s behavior in this case virtually ran the whole gamut of the
actions mentioned above. For example, Watkins made a sexually driven
“joke” about a floor cleaner called “Bona” in the presence of Doe and the
women who were cleaning his office. In reference to a female client,
Watkins told Doe, “Man, I wouldn’t want to see her naked.” On another
occasion, he told Doe that he needed to see if a certain courthouse
employee “wore a padded bra or if her boobs were really that big.” He
referred to a local female attorney as “T.Queef,” which is a term that
describes the emission of air from the vagina.
Moreover, he told Doe that her “boobs [were] distracting him” and
that she should wear that same shirt if she “ever went clubbing.” Watkins
also asked Doe on multiple occasions if “her vagina was still broke” after
she missed work once for a gynecology appointment. Further, Watkins
told Doe that “he just wished he had a wife that had sex with him all the
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time” and that he was glad he collected and kept naked pictures of his
former girlfriends.
Watkins showed Doe a picture on his cell phone of his wife’s vagina.
On another occasion, Watkins showed Doe a video of his wife squirting
breast milk in the back seat of Doe’s vehicle. Watkins also kept naked
photographs of his wife on his computer, and he showed the ACA one of
these photos in which his wife was pregnant, nude, and covered in blue
paint. Additionally, Watkins appeared before Doe wearing only his boxer
briefs on at least two occasions. Based on these facts, we agree with the
commission that Watkins violated rule 32:8.4(g).
IV. Sanction.
Having concluded Watkins violated rule 32:8.4(g), we must now
determine the appropriate sanction for his unethical conduct. The
commission recommended a thirty-day suspension. On appeal, the Board
recommends a six-month suspension, while Watkins requests a public
reprimand in lieu of any suspension.
In determining the proper sanction for a violation of our rules of
professional conduct, we examine “the nature of the violations, protection
of the public, deterrence of similar misconduct by others, the lawyer’s
fitness to practice, and [our] duty to uphold the integrity of the profession
in the eyes of the public.” Stansberry, 922 N.W.2d at 598 (emphasis added)
(quoting Iowa Supreme Ct. Att’y Disciplinary Bd. v. Powell, 726 N.W.2d
397, 408 (Iowa 2007)). “We also consider any aggravating or mitigating
circumstances.” Id. As Watkins notes, his case differs from past sexual-
harassment cases because “this is the first ‘sexual harassment’
disciplinary case before the Court that does not involve an attorney
propositioning a client, touching a client, or taking some other
inappropriate action for the attorney’s own sexual gratification.” Thus,
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our prior disciplinary cases involving sexual harassment may be
instructive, but their relevance is diminished. Cf. Iowa Supreme Ct. Att’y
Disciplinary Bd. v. Carpenter, 781 N.W.2d 263, 270 (Iowa 2010) (“There is
no standard sanction for a particular type of misconduct, and though prior
cases can be instructive, we ultimately determine an appropriate sanction
based on the particular circumstances of each case.”).
Our duty to uphold the integrity of the legal profession extends to
all forms of sexual harassment as expressly prohibited in rule 32:8.4(g).
Sexual harassment in any form can have devastating effects for the women
who experience it. In the legal profession, surveys reveal a gender-
harassment problem in law firms so serious that “nine in ten harassment
victims [at law firms] had experienced sex-based or gender harassment”
that did not involve sexual advances. Soucek & Schultz at 235. In a 2018
survey of 3000 businesses and law firms, sixty-eight percent of the female
respondents reported experiencing sexual harassment. Hannah Hayes, Is
Time Really Up for Sexual Harassment in the Workplace? Companies and
Law Firms Respond, 26 Perspectives, Dec.–Jan. 2019, at 3, 3.
The effects of this type of sexual harassment have long been
recognized. See Catharine A. MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment of Working
Women 47, 51 (1979) [hereinafter MacKinnon] (Sexual harassment leaves
women “feel[ing] humiliated, degraded, ashamed, embarrassed, and
cheap, as well as angry” and often “totally shatter[s]” a woman’s confidence
in her job performance.). Yet, when “[f]aced with the spectre of
unemployment, discrimination in the job market, and a good possibility of
repeated incidents elsewhere, women usually try to endure” the
harassment. Id. at 52; see also Chai R. Feldblum & Victoria A. Lipnic,
U.S. Equal Emp’t Opportunity Comm’n, Select Task Force on the Study of
Harassment in the Workplace (June 2016), https://www.eeoc.gov/select-
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task-force-study-harassment-workplace [https://perma.cc/4XYG-B265]
(“The least common response to harassment is to take some formal
action – either to report the harassment internally or file a formal legal
complaint.”). That Watkins’s conduct did not involve the type of self-
gratifying sexual harassment involved in our prior cases does not lessen
its gravity.
Some states have imposed severe sanctions for similar behavior. For
example, the Ohio Supreme Court suspended an attorney’s license to
practice law in Ohio for one year for behavior similar to Watkins’s with the
final six months of the suspension stayed on the condition that he engage
in no further misconduct. Disciplinary Counsel v. Skolnick, 104 N.E.3d
775, 778 (Ohio 2018). There, the attorney verbally harassed his paralegal
for more than two years by calling her names, insulting her appearance,
making fun of her husband and her mother, criticizing her education level
in front of other attorneys, falsely telling an African-American client that
the paralegal did not like black people, and remarking that she and
another female employee should perform a sexual gesture on him so he
could rate their performances. Id. at 776.
Similarly, the Colorado Supreme Court suspended an attorney’s
license for one year and one day for inflicting “vulgar, degrading non-
consensual sexually abusive conduct” on his employees. People v. Lowery,
894 P.2d 758, 758, 761 (Colo. 1995) (en banc) (per curiam). While the
attorney in that case also engaged in other acts of sexual misconduct, such
as kissing employees, the Colorado Supreme Court found the attorney’s
verbal abuse of the women just as problematic as the nonconsensual
physical contact. Id. at 760–61.
The Kansas Supreme Court suspended a judge for ninety days who
had a history of making highly inappropriate, sexually suggestive
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comments to women with whom he worked. In re Henderson, 343 P.3d
518, 520–21, 529 (Kan. 2015) (per curiam). These included telling a female
prosecutor that when his wife gave birth, the doctor asked if he wanted an
extra stitch in his wife for his pleasure; talking about sexual tension
between this prosecutor and a witness in a trial; stating that another
female prosecutor liked to have sex; inquiring whether this prosecutor was
pregnant after returning from vacation; and commenting that his female
court reporter’s back hurt because she had been with her boyfriend all
weekend. Id. at 520–22. While there was other misconduct, including an
improper ex parte communication to have a disfavored attorney removed
from an appointment list, id. at 524, the harassment bears resemblance
to that in the present case. These cases support a significant sanction for
Watkins’s conduct.
While the parties stipulated to the facts regarding the aggravating
and mitigating circumstances, we are not bound by their stipulations of
law. See Iowa Supreme Ct. Att’y Disciplinary Bd. v. Lynch, 901 N.W.2d
501, 511 n.5 (Iowa 2017). Upon de novo review, our aggravating and
mitigating factors do not mirror the commission’s factors. In fact, there
are several aggravating factors in this case that support the Board’s
requested six-month suspension.
A. Aggravating Factors. We note the following aggravating factors:
(1) Watkins’s failure to accept responsibility and his continuous
downplaying of his behavior, (2) Watkins’s claimed ignorance that his
behavior was inappropriate, (3) Watkins’s position as the elected county
attorney, (4) the power imbalance between Watkins and Doe, and (5) the
harm caused to Doe.
1. Watkins’s failure to accept responsibility. While Watkins claims
he has accepted responsibility for his sexual harassment and has worked
14
to address the issue that caused the mentality behind his gender
discrimination, his public apology and characterization of his behavior in
this case suggest otherwise. See Stansberry, 922 N.W.2d at 600 (holding
it was an aggravating factor that the attorney accused of misconduct
“minimized his crimes, placed blame elsewhere, and failed to acknowledge
his wrongdoing”). Notably, in his public apology, he merely referred to his
behavior as “careless.” An example of being careless is when you forget to
turn off the coffee pot before leaving work. Watkins’s behavior cannot be
classified as careless.
In this case, Watkins tries to downplay his harassing conduct by
arguing that most of his conduct at issue “consisted of one-off comments,
most of which were intended to be humorous,” and “[t]here must be some
tolerance for tasteless jokes when there is no evidence that the jokes were
intended as come-ons or to be abusive.” Further, he defends his behavior
by noting that Doe didn’t object to his comments. Humor, like “tasteless
jokes”—as Watkins characterizes most of his behavior—trivializes sexual
harassment. MacKinnon at 52. It also places women in the catch-22
situation of either tolerating this harassment or telling their employer
about their discomfort at the risk of job retaliation. It should not be the
victim’s responsibility to speak up when being sexually harassed at work.
To be clear, there is no “preferred” form of sexual harassment. That
Watkins engaged in degrading gender discrimination rather than making
sexual advances on women does not lessen the egregiousness of his
behavior. Nonetheless, as we have already explained, sexual harassment
encompasses both put-downs and come-ons. It also includes behaviors
such as “jokes” at a woman’s expense, inappropriate comments about a
woman’s attractiveness, offensive names for female body parts,
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pornographic images, and repugnant comments about female sexuality.
Watkins’s misconduct encompassed most of this behavior.
Doe and the ACA are no less the victims of Watkins’s harassment
just because the comments, photographs, and video largely were directed
at or featured other women. Despite Watkins’s claim that his
inappropriate behavior was only “sporadic,” he created a toxic workplace
culture that made it harder for these women to do their jobs.
2. Watkins’s proclaimed ignorance that his behavior was
inappropriate. We also find it troubling that Watkins excuses his behavior
by noting that his conduct occurred before the #MeToo movement.
Watkins explains, “[I]t may seem commonsense that [his] comments were
out-of-line. But this issue was not yet at the forefront of the American
consciousness, and certainly was not yet at the forefront of Mr. Watkins’[s]
consciousness.”
Perhaps Watkins only recently figured out that his behavior is
repugnant, but sexual harassment has existed for centuries. Reva B.
Siegel, A Short History of Sexual Harassment, in Directions in Sexual
Harassment Law 1, 3 (Catharine A. MacKinnon & Reva B. Siegel eds.,
2003). The #MeToo movement is not the first time that sexual harassment
has been brought to the forefront of the American consciousness in
popular culture. High-profile sexual-harassment charges involving
famous men gripped the nation’s attention in the ’90s and subsequent
stories of famous men who sexually harass women have continued to
make news. See Danielle Kurtzleben, The Trailblazers and Turning Points
Along the Road to #MeToo, Wash. Post, July 5, 2019, (Outlook),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-trailblazers-and-turning-
points-along-the-road-to-metoo/2019/07/05/5a027b42-9457-11e9-
b570-6416efdc0803_story.html [https://perma.cc/RLW2-ELQP]; Peter
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Weber, The Depressingly Long History of Sexual Harassment Turning
Points, The Week, Nov. 27, 2017, (Analysis)
https://theweek.com/articles/738873/depressingly-long-history-sexual-
harassment-turning-points [https://perma.cc/HF3N-HTKP].
Since 1964, employees have had the option to bring legal action
against employers who subject employees to unwanted sexual advances
due to the enactment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended
at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2 (2012). In the decades since, the legal community’s
knowledge and understanding of sexual harassment in the workplace has
grown. In 1986, the United States Supreme Court recognized sexual
harassment as a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Meritor
Sav. Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 67–68, 106 S. Ct. 2399, 2406 (1986).
Our definition of “sexual harassment” in attorney disciplinary cases is
broader than the employment standard under Title VII, and we are not
analyzing whether Watkins’s behavior was sufficient to establish a Title VII
claim. See Moothart, 860 N.W.2d at 603–04 (declining to adopt “a narrow
definition of sexual harassment borrowed largely from employment law”).
Yet, we note these basic legal concepts involving sexual harassment
because, as an attorney, it seems implausible that Watkins’s behavior
stemmed from his claimed ignorance.
3. Watkins’s position as the elected Van Buren county attorney. The
district court in Watkins’s removal decision said it best when it stated,
“Many people, probably most, would consider much of [Watkins’s] conduct
to be outrageous or even shocking. The fact that Mr. Watkins is an
attorney trained in the law makes his behavior all the more troublesome.”
Watkins, 914 N.W.2d at 836 (plurality opinion). Frankly, one need not
have any legal training to know, for example, that you should not show
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your female employee a picture of your wife’s vagina as Watkins did to Doe
in this case.
Though Watkins’s actions were not criminal, it is an aggravating
factor that he was an elected county attorney at the time of at least some
of his sexual harassment. See Stansberry, 922 N.W.2d at 600 (noting an
attorney’s position as an assistant county attorney at the time of his acts
was an aggravating factor); Comm. on Prof’l Ethics & Conduct v. Tompkins,
415 N.W.2d 620, 623 (Iowa 1987) (noting an attorney’s misconduct was
“particularly egregious” in light of his tenure as county attorney). “Lawyers
holding public office assume legal responsibilities going beyond those of
other citizens. A lawyer’s abuse of public office can suggest an inability to
fulfill the professional role of a lawyer.” Iowa R. of Prof’l Conduct 32:8.4
cmt. [5]. Watkins was the very person tasked to seek justice for victims of
sex crimes and domestic abuse, yet he cultivated and maintained a culture
of disrespect for women within his own office. The public and our
profession expects and deserves better from its elected county attorneys.
4. The power imbalance between Watkins and Doe. The power
imbalance between Watkins and Doe is also an aggravating factor,
especially given Watkins’s supervisory role over Doe. See Stansberry, 922
N.W.2d at 597 (holding an attorney violated the rule of professional
misconduct against sexual harassment in part by victimizing attorneys
who had lower seniority than him in the county attorney’s office). At the
time, Doe was a young, inexperienced legal assistant. At its core, sexual
harassment is “an issue of power,” in which those in power use their status
in the powerful group at the expense of those outside of that group.
MacKinnon at 173. When an employer such as Watkins abuses his
position of power and authority over his female employees to denigrate
their positions and their very existence as women, he is maintaining a
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workplace that serves to keep women from succeeding in their professions.
This has a profound impact on the integrity of the legal profession.
5. The harm Watkins caused to Doe. Doe resigned from her work
with Watkins due to his poor treatment of her, which included but was not
limited to Watkins’s sexual harassment. Keosauqua and Van Buren
County as a whole are small in terms of population. There is not a wide
range of employment opportunities in a rural community for a young
woman subjected to gender discrimination. This leaves her in a
particularly vulnerable position, especially when the gender discrimination
involves an elected county official. Doe relinquishing her employment
because of Watkins’s behavior is yet another aggravating factor in this
case. See Stansberry, 922 N.W.2d at 600 (“[W]e also consider the harm
caused by the attorney’s misconduct as an aggravating factor.”).
B. Mitigating Factors.
1. Mitigating factors considered. The only mitigating factors we
consider in this case are Watkins’s cooperation in the disciplinary process
and the steps that Watkins took to address his past unprofessional
behaviors, including his treatment for alcoholism. Watkins cooperated
fully with the ethics proceeding and stipulated to his rule violation. He
also attends individual and marital counseling to address his personal and
marital issues. Finally, while we commend Watkins for his success in
treating his alcoholism and consider it a mitigating factor, we do not weigh
this factor heavily because Watkins denies being intoxicated during the
work hours and the record does not support a finding that his sexual
harassment was directly linked to his intoxication. Cf. Iowa Supreme Ct.
Att’y Disciplinary Bd. v. Clarity, 838 N.W.2d 648, 661 (Iowa 2013) (“To be
considered in mitigation, the alcoholism must have contributed to the
ethical misconduct . . . .”).
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2. Mitigating factors the commission erroneously considered. The
commission erroneously considered certain factors in mitigation, such as
Watkins’s lack of prior attorney discipline. Watkins was new to the
practice of law at the time of his misconduct, so he did not have much of
an opportunity to warrant disciplinary action prior to the misconduct at
issue. As we noted in Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board v.
Sears, the absence of prior discipline “does not weigh heavily” when the
attorney being disciplined has little experience to begin with in the practice
of law. 933 N.W.2d 214, 225 (Iowa 2019).
Nor do we consider Watkins’s lack of experience a mitigating factor.
It does not require legal experience to treat employees with basic respect
in a nondiscriminatory fashion. Watkins’s inexperience did not cause him
to engage in sexual harassment.
3. Watkins’s proffered additional mitigating factor. We reject
Watkins’s argument on appeal that we should consider the seventeen
months he was removed from his duties as county attorney during the
course of his removal case as a mitigating factor because he “has already
been punished for his actions.” Watkins’s county attorney position was
only part-time, and he continued to practice law in his private practice
throughout the course of his removal case. Any reduction in Watkins’s
private practice during that seventeen-month period due to his tarnished
reputation was the result of his own behavior. In any event, our “[a]ttorney
disciplinary proceedings are not designed to punish the offender.” Iowa
Supreme Ct. Att’y Disciplinary Bd. v. Howe, 706 N.W.2d 360, 378 (Iowa
2005) (quoting Comm. on Prof’l Ethics & Conduct v. Vesole, 400 N.W.2d
591, 593 (Iowa 1987)). Instead, we determine an attorney’s sanction by
examining “the nature of the violations, protection of the public, deterrence
of similar misconduct by others, the lawyer’s fitness to practice, and [our]
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duty to uphold the integrity of the profession in the eyes of the public.”
Stansberry, 922 N.W.2d at 598 (quoting Powell, 726 N.W.2d at 408).
C. Summary of Our Analysis. Watkins created and fostered a
culture of sexual harassment that persisted for two years. Doe had the
courage to resign and speak up about Watkins’s behavior. Much of
Watkins’s misconduct reads like textbook examples of what not to do in
the workplace. He abused the public’s trust and confidence as an elected
official and the county attorney tasked with seeking justice for victims of
other forms of harassment. He undermined the virtues that we hold in
high regard within the legal profession.
Despite his admitted embarrassment over the public backlash he
received during his removal proceedings, Watkins still continues to
minimize and make excuses for his behavior. The commission’s thirty-day
suspension sends the message that sexual harassment in the form of
gender discrimination is less harmful than other forms of sexual
harassment, which have received harsher sanctions. Sexual harassment
in all forms is unacceptable and unethical.
In Stansberry, our most recent attorney disciplinary case involving
sexual harassment, we sanctioned an assistant county attorney with a
one-year suspension after he engaged in sexual harassment by secretly
photographing female coworkers’ undergarments in the office and
photographing and stealing underwear from one coworker’s home. Id. at
594, 601. We concluded that attorney violated three different rules of
professional conduct, including rule violations for sexual harassment,
misleading a law enforcement investigation, and his criminal convictions
for the trespass of his coworker’s home and the theft of her underwear. Id.
at 596–98.
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Unlike Stansberry, Watkins did not engage in criminal conduct.
However, there are still several aggravating factors in this case that overlap
with those we considered in determining Stansberry’s sanction. These
include the power imbalance of the attorney over Doe in a supervisory
capacity, the attorney’s position in a county attorney’s office, the attorney’s
minimization of his acts and placing the blame elsewhere, and the harm
caused by the attorney’s misconduct that included Doe leaving her job.
See id. at 599–600. Watkins’s misconduct did not result in a criminal
conviction or more than one disciplinary charge to warrant a one-year
suspension, but this is still a rare case of first impression involving the
extraordinary circumstances in which a county attorney was nearly
removed from elective office due to his shocking and repeated displays of
sexual harassment. We must take that into account in our decision to
sanction Watkins.
We have a “duty to uphold the integrity of the profession in the eyes
of the public.” Id. at 598 (quoting Powell, 726 N.W.2d at 408). Sexual
harassment is a problem in our profession, and our sanction in this case
needs to reflect the seriousness of this problem to deter similar misconduct
by other attorneys and “uphold the integrity of the profession in the eyes
of the public.” Id. (quoting Powell, 726 N.W.2d at 408). We have repeatedly
stated our intention in discipline cases “to achieve consistency with our
prior cases when determining the proper sanction.” See, e.g., Iowa
Supreme Ct. Att’y Disciplinary Bd. v. Templeton, 784 N.W.2d 761, 769 (Iowa
2010). Our holding today sets the precedent for similar cases in the future.
The proper sanction in this case is the suspension of Watkins’s license to
practice law for an indefinite period with no possibility of reinstatement for
six months from the filing of this opinion.
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V. Disposition.
We suspend Watkins’s license to practice law in Iowa for an
indefinite period with no possibility of reinstatement for six months from
the date of filing of this opinion. Watkins must comply with the
notification requirements of Iowa Court Rule 34.24. To establish his
eligibility for reinstatement, Watkins must file an application for
reinstatement meeting all applicable requirements of Iowa Court Rule
34.25. We tax the costs of this action to Watkins in accordance with Iowa
Court Rule 36.24(1).
LICENSE SUSPENDED.
All justices concur except Waterman, J., who takes no part.