A&O sacks erotic-fiction writing associate
The Allen & Overy Moscow senior associate who published an erotic novel on-line has been sacked.
The Allen & Overy (A&O) Moscow senior associate who published an erotic novel on-line has been sacked.
Deidre Dare’s employment was terminated on Friday, several weeks after the firm stopped her from publishing further instalments of Expat: A Weekly Serialized Novel About Living in Moscow.
In a statement, a spokesman for the firm said: “Following our normal disciplinary process, we found that Ms Dare’s behaviour - in publishing the material she did in the professional name under which she practises, and the way that she has responded to a number of reasonable requests from us since - was unacceptable and totally at odds with the standards of behaviour that we expect from all of our people.
“We’ve therefore terminated her employment.
“After we became formally aware of Ms Dare’s website and started to consider the firm’s response, she filed a grievance which was fully investigated in accordance with our standard policies and found to be groundless, although she has appealed against the decision.”
In her novel Dare wrote about sexual encounters between a fictional woman and expats and local men. A disclaimer on Dare’s website reads that all events and persons depicted in her writing are fictional.
After A&O banned her from writing further instalments of her story, a statement on the site read: “The author has been forbidden from publishing further chapters of Expat for the time being. She will resume if and when she is permitted to.”
US national Dare joined A&O Moscow in 2008 as an international finance and projects lawyer.
Dare was unavailable for comment.
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Readers' comments (7)
Anonymous | 3-Feb-2009 2:54 am
Freedom of Speech
Please sue A&O. A&O is infringing emplyee's freedom of speech. People's behaviour after work is not only subject to law but also the firm's policy?! Come on! We are not slavery!!!
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Anonymous | 3-Feb-2009 4:46 pm
No big deal
What's the big deal? Why lawyers can read erotic stories but can't write erotic stories, especially when it's expressly stated that the stories are fictional? Absolute hypocrisy in my view. Come on, this is 21st century, the Internet age, long after Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned!
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Anonymous | 4-Feb-2009 6:09 am
Firm values or slavery?
A&O management seems like a bunch of hypocrites . What values do law frms have any way? She has been used to set an example to behave like a slave in professional and personal life!
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Anonymous | 21-Feb-2009 5:27 am
I think the main problem is here
... she filed a grievance which was fully investigated in accordance with our standard policies and found to be groundless, although she has appealed against the decision
She moved forward first, they got pissed. Here is the result. But I feel sorry for this girl.
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George | 27-Feb-2009 7:05 pm
STUPIDITY FACISM AND MORE STUPIDITY
What a pathetic stae of affairs.
If this woman wants to write erotic fiction then she should be allowed to do so. Nobody has the right to terminate her employment because she likes to write, no matter what genre she chooses. Those who are responcible for this woman losing her job are pathetic morons.
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Vitaly | 18-Jun-2009 10:31 am
Well done, A&O! Get all the freaks out!
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Reginald | 23-Mar-2010 3:34 pm
What's wrong with a firm wanting their associates to conform to a certain standard of behavior? Should they no longer have that right?
This isn't about free speech (she still has that), it's about freedom to contract.
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