Sexual Harassment Prevention Resources

Annual Training Requirement | Resources | About the CBA Sexual Harassment Prevention Task Force


Illinois’ Annual Sexual Harassment Prevention Training Requirement
The Illinois Human Rights Act requires every Illinois employee to complete a sexual harassment prevention training once a year.  To help legal employers provide this training requirement for their employees, the CBA is hosting it’s biannual sexual harassment prevention training for attorneys and all legal staff on December 14, 2021 from 2:00-3:00 p.m. Click here to learn more and register for the training.


Sexual Harassment Resources
If you or someone you know are in need of resources and/or have questions about sexual harassment in the workplace, please refer to the attached CBA Lawyers’ Resources to Stop Sexual Harassment flyer.  


CBA Sexual Harassment Prevention Task Force
The CBA’s Sexual Harassment Prevention Task Force was created to help address sexual harassment in the legal profession with the goal to create real change within the culture of our practice.  According to the Women Lawyers on Guard’s 2020 national survey, which looked at sexual harassment in the legal profession over a 30-year period (i.e. sexual assaults, stalking, unwanted date requests, sexually explicit inquiries, sexualized name-calling, attractiveness ratings, ogling/leering, etc.), the statistics sadly look very similar when comparing 2020 to 1990.  According to this survey, sexual harassment remains in 73% of the culture today versus 89% of the culture 30 years ago.  Furthermore, 86% of sexual harassment in the workplace continues to be unreported due to fear of job loss and other negative career consequences, concerns about safety, doubts about whether reports will be believed, and because the harasser is the person receiving the reports.  

Additionally, in order to understand why the majority of our work culture needs to change, it’s important to understand the significant injuries sexual harassment causes to the individuals being harassed, their organizations, as well as the entire legal profession.  Some reported long-term effects caused by sexual harassment include:
● anxiety about one’s career or workplace (66%);
● fear of retaliation (40%);
● loss of self-confidence (40%);
● loss of productivity (36%); and
● negative economic impact in one’s career (33%).