If you are an employee in a law office contemplating a workplace romance, you would be wise not to proceed unless you know the rules. But what are the rules? That is the question Valerie Mutton asks in the issue of Lawyers Weekly of November 13.
You will be relieved to learn that the rules are unlikely to prohibit such a move altogether. “You can’t completely ban them,” meaning workplace romance, Simon Kent, senior partner at Kent Employment Law in Vancouver said. “That would be too restrictive. I can’t see a court supporting that.”
Lawyers have a need for billable hours and therefore spend a sizeable amount of time at work. So it is assumed “that love will bloom from time to time.” Still, a workplace romance is a minefield. “It can compromise the office environment, make other people uncomfortable and leave the employer open to a lawsuit on having created a toxic environment.”
If you and your love-object are on the same level in the office hierarchy and are not “too lovey-dovey” in public, nobody has a right to object. Maureen Wareham, corporate secretary and chief ethics officer at Hydro One, said that they do not have a policy forbidding romantic relationships between employees but they have a code of business conduct that “requires our employees to treat each other with dignity and respect.” One would therefore assume that the code would permit a discreet romantic liaison conducted by two persons on the same level in the hierarchy that does not offend others.
It may be unrealistic to expect you to be aware that your beloved “may turn out to be a dud.” Valerie Muttron writes, “while you are in the throes of passion/romance/lust,” but, realistic or not, it would be a good idea to keep it in mind.
“I have seen extreme situations,” Simon Kent said, “that become an employer’s nightmare when the breakup is messy and plays out in the workplace. The worst-case scenario is when the police become involved – there are restraining orders in place and yet the people work together. How does the employer police that? Who stays home and who gets paid? Clearly, the employer doesn’t want to be seen as taking sides in the breakup.”
An affair between two people who are not on the same level in the hierarchy and are in a reporting line is open to the charge of exploitation and is taboo. That is elementary. It is perhaps not quite so obvious that when people in that situation hide the relationship and another employee finds out about it and complains, the deception makes the offence even more serious.
Surely, to simplify matters, the rules and codes of office behaviour should just remind all male employees of the ancient adage:
Don’t put your pen into company ink.
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
Ah, for the good old days as depicted in the TV series Mad Men! They were certainly good for the guys and probably many of the ladies as well although there has been a lot of revisionist history.
As for lawyers: It’s probabloy worse if the partner is a competing law office.
At least bloggers are free of these hierarchical restrictions.
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There was a time – in the sixties – when it was my job to assign script assistants to TV producers, i.e., acting as matchmaker. Romances were de rigueur.
Thank you, Peter.
All very complicated. But, at my age, not a very major problem. Who knows what I’ll dream about tonight. RK