Continuing below the title Jane Doe, a former affiliate at DLA Piper has filed swimsuit alleging that Brian Biggs, then a accomplice on the agency, raped her and later escalated the violence by breaking into her residence and strangling her. The grievance paints a grim image of how energy imbalances, silence, and allegedly identified misconduct can metastasize into one thing much more harmful.
In keeping with the lawsuit, Doe started working at DLA Piper in 2021. Virtually instantly, she alleges, Biggs pressured her into consuming closely with him and right into a sexual and romantic relationship. This was not, the swimsuit emphasizes, a relationship between equals. Biggs was not solely a senior accomplice, the grievance additionally alleges he was her skilled mentor, holding important sway over her profession trajectory.
Doe additionally alleges Biggs informed her that “her first precedence was to socialize with him and placate him sexually on the expense of her work {and professional} obligation.”
The grievance alleges that Biggs systematically remoted Doe from others on the agency over an prolonged interval, chopping her off from colleagues and assist techniques. As per the grievance, “Biggs insisted that he was Plaintiff’ solely ally within the Agency, that different companions throughout the follow group (a) couldn’t be trusted, (b) weren’t followers of Plaintiff’s work, and (c) appeared upon her much less favorably than he did.”
That isolation, the swimsuit claims, culminated in an alleged rape in December 2022 contained in the agency’s Wilmington workplace and later breaking into Doe’s residence and trying to strangle her. Doe alleges she suffered from PTSD on account of Biggs’s motion and ultimately pressured her to resign.
The grievance alleges that this conduct was not an aberration. In keeping with the swimsuit, Biggs “had a historical past of sleeping together with his feminine subordinates,” and that this historical past was identified to his companions on the agency.
The lawsuit asserts claims in opposition to DLA Piper for hostile work setting primarily based on intercourse, quid professional quo sexual harassment, and retaliation, all arising from Biggs’s alleged conduct as a accomplice of the agency. It additionally brings a separate depend of assault and battery in opposition to Biggs individually.
A DLA spokesperson mentioned, “The agency was notified in January 2025 of a romantic relationship between a accomplice and an affiliate, which we investigated promptly. The affiliate made no allegations of rape to the agency. Following the agency’s evaluate, the accomplice instantly withdrew from the agency; the affiliate remained employed on the agency till she resigned on December 12. We’ll deal with this lawsuit by the suitable channels.”
In keeping with reporting by Bloomberg Regulation, DLA Piper employed an lawyer know for disaster administration work, Seyfarth’s Camille Olson, after they have been notified of Doe’s allegations.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Regulation, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Pondering Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the most effective, so please join together with her. Be at liberty to electronic mail her with any suggestions, questions, or feedback and comply with her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].
