Illinois immigration lawyer, Samir Zia Chowhan, placed an ad in the Adult Gigs section of Craigslist seeking to hire a secretary/legal assistant willing to have sex with him and his partner. Here’s a snippet from the post:

Loop law firm looking to hire am [sic] energetic woman for their open secretary/legal assistant position. Duties will include general secretarial work, some paralegal work and additional duties for two lawyers in the firm. No experience required, training will be provided. Generous annual salary and benefits will be provided, including medical, dental, life, disability, 401(k) etc. If interested, please send current resume and a few pictures along with a description of your physical features, including measurements. We look forward to meeting you.

It seems pretty straightforward, right (well, except for the request for a picture and description)? Well, Debbie Dickinson responded to the ad with her employment history, a photo, her height, clothing size and her measurements. Here’s the reply she received from Samir Zia Chowhan.

“Debbi,

Thank you for your interest in the job. I just wanted to give you some more info about the job and see if you are still interested in interviewing.

Our law firm is a boutique firm, concentrating solely in immigration law. The name of the law firm is Chowhan Law, P.C. You can see the website at www.chowhanlaw.com. You would be working with the two partners of the firm. Your duties will include the general secretarial work and legal work. The legal work will include filling out visa applications, etc. As mentioned in the posting, you will have an annual salary which will depend on your experience and other factors, the range will be from $50,000 to $75,000. In addition, we provide several benefits such as medical, dental, retirement, life, disability.

As this is posted in the “adult gigs” section, in addition to the legal work, you would be required to have sexual interaction with me and my partner, sometimes together sometimes separate. This part of the job would require sexy dressing and flirtatious interaction with me and my partner, as well as sexual interaction. You will have to be comfortable doing this with us.

If you think you’re comfortable so far, please let me know and we can proceed with the process.

The next step is to set up an interview. When are you available to interview? I am free to interview today. Please let me know what your availability is.

Lastly, we’ve actually hired a couple of girls in the past for this position. But they have not been able to handle the sexual aspect of the job later. We have to be sure you’re comfortable with that aspect, because I don’t want you to do anything that you’re not comfortable with. So since that time, we’ve decided that as part of the interview process you’ll be required to perform for us sexually (i didn’t do this before with the other girls i hired, now i think i have to because they couldn’t handle it). Because that aspect is an integral part of the job, I think it’s necessary to see if you can do that, because it’ll predict future behavior of you being able to handle it when you have the job.

If you’re still okay with everything, let me know what you’re availability is and we can figure out a time for you to come in and interview. Let me know. Thanks for your interest.

Samir”

NO…..DirtyLAWndry is not making this up. You can see the ethics complaint and full details on the Illinois Attorney Registration And Disciplinary Commission’s website: https://www.iardc.org/09CH0053CM.html Initially, Samir Zia Chowhan lied about posting the ad saying, “It appears that somebody with malice [sic] intentions has used my business information to post the advertisement on Craigslist. I did not post the advertisement for a legal secretary,” but he later confessed to it.

I’m still trying to figure out why Debbie Dickinson was in the Adult Gigs’ section looking for a secretary/legal assistant job. Hmmm….

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If you have a story you’d like to share with DirtyLAWndry, please email it to blog@dirtyLAWndry.com with “Reader Submission” in the subject field.

Also, if you’re a solo practitioner or entrepreneur, I’d love to feature you on the Entrepreneur page (http://entrepreneurs.dirtylawndry.com/) of this site. For more information about this opportunity, please visit the Entrepreneur page.

DirtyLAWndry reader, “Lauren,” writes about her experience working as a legal clerk.

Hey DirtyLAWndry! I’ve been clerking for less than a year, but in that time I have formed the opinion that judges are required to abuse their power. There are quite a few legal clerks here and we have all witnessed the same over-reaction by overly-sensitive (sometimes insensitive) judges. Fridays are the worst days of the week for us. One judge in particular always shows up extremely late and falls asleep during cases, especially on Fridays. Today, he was extremely irritable when he came in to work. Within maybe 20 minutes on the bench, he fell asleep. He always tries to play it off like he’s reading documents or in deep thought (with his eyes closed). But, today he was snoring so loudly that it wasn’t fooling anybody. During a trial today, an attorney was admonished for waking up the judge. There was an objection that needed to be settled. You would think that the judge would be embarassed or at the very least stay awake afterwards. Nope. He fell right back asleep. He would get annoyed every time one of the attorneys objected and start yelling at them. It got to the point that the attorneys stopped waking him up and turned to me and the bailiff for assistance. So, I try waking the judge up. Next thing I know, I’m being threatened with contempt for waking up “your honor.” He’s screaming at me that I should spend time in jail over the weekend. I am sooo not cut out for this. I’m sure it’s not ALL judges, however, it seems like there is a vast majority that get a kick out of abusing their power.

Reader, what do you think?

UPDATE: I just saw a story over at the ABAJournal and I was reminded of “Lauren’s” submission. Douglas County, Missouri Attorney Carl Smith has been jailed for 120 days on criminal contempt charges for critical statements he wrote about Circuit Judge Robert Carter, County Prosecutor Christopher Wade and other court officials in an appellate brief for a client. Read more….

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If you have a story you’d like to share with DirtyLAWndry, please email it to blog@dirtyLAWndry.com.

Also, if you’re a solo practitioner or entrepreneur, I’d love to feature you on the Entrepreneur page (http://entrepreneurs.dirtylawndry.com/) of this site. For more information about this opportunity, please visit the Entrepreneur page.

Blind lawyer: Pro took me for 8G
By STEPHANIE FARR
Philadelphia Daily News

Whether it was prostitution or Pilates, a blind Delaware County lawyer is hoping for a happy ending after his federal civil suit against a Philadelphia woman and a credit-card company was thrown out last week. John F. Peoples, 60, was steamed after he learned that the woman who he says he hired for sex allegedly overbilled his Discover card by $8,600. So he sued her for damages and the credit-card company for alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, claiming that it had not sufficiently protected its blind customers. “This wouldn’t have happened to a sighted person,” Peoples said yesterday, adding that he plans to appeal. In court documents, the woman named in the suit, Ginger Dayle, said that she had provided Pilates lessons to Peoples and denied that she was a prostitute or that she had defrauded his credit card. Read more at Philly.com or watch the video below for a quick summary!

Quote of the Year: When asked during deposition if he ever, as a lawyer, thought twice about using a prostitute, he said, according to court documents: “It doesn’t bother me because it doesn’t affect my practice of law. Prostitution, I believe, is a misdemeanor. Even if convicted, it would not be a problem for the disciplinary board.”

SMH.

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If you have a story you’d like to share with DirtyLAWndry, please email it to blog@dirtyLAWndry.com.

Also, if you’re a solo practitioner or entrepreneur, I’d love to feature you on the Entrepreneur page (http://entrepreneurs.dirtylawndry.com/) of this site. For more information about this opportunity please visit the Entrepreneur page.