The following got my attention.

“Derb—I am a lawyer in [name of state]. My practice is entirely

employment law, representing management (i.e., defendants). I do a lot of

sexual harassment claims — companies like being represented by a woman

attorney, looks better.

“I read through the huge and detailed complaint. I also have some doubts –

if it was all that bad, WHY would she keep going out to dinner with him, go

back to work for him, etc. But the quotes in the complaint bother me,

because it suggests they were taped. And the allegations are really bad.

This isn’t just a guy at work being obnoxious, it is someone in a position

of power over an employee, and that is what makes it particularly bad. No

one should have to tolerate the things in the complaint in relation to their

job (unless it is consensual, of course — that’s a different issue).

“All that being said, I come back to something that I have learned over 12

years of practice in this area — the more outrageous the allegations, the

more likely they are to be true. People don’t make up outrageous stuff,

they make up (or exaggerate) mild stuff. That’s a generalization, of

course, and certainly an individual could make up outrageous stuff –

particularly if there is a partisan reason, and there are lots of reasons to

think this is partisan, the timing of it in particular. But in the back of

my mind, I’m not liking this….”