Before we hook up, please sign this

In an effort to stem sexual harassment suits, more and more companies are insisting that office paramours sign "love contracts" -- even before any collegial coitus takes place. Is climbing over the cube worth the aggravation?

By Sarah Elizabeth Richards

Jul 21, 2005 | Christine Barney doesn't know who brought up the idea first. All she remembers is that a few years ago she and a male colleague, Robert Gill, stopped in a deli for lunch on a car trip to visit a client, and one of them casually mentioned that it would be fun to do something outside of work -- as in "Maybe we could go to the movies sometime soon," she says.

So Barney, who was the managing partner of a public relations firm in Miami, did what any recently divorced woman in a two-year dating drought would do. She ran straight to her business partner, Bruce Rubin, and told him that she and Gill, the company's senior writer, were thinking of dating. "I wanted to make sure it was above board," says Barney, now 41.

But Rubin wasn't thrilled about the idea of Barney mixing love and work, especially with a subordinate. So he ran straight to his lawyer, who explained that the potential lovebirds just needed to sign an agreement stating that their fraternizing was consensual.

Never mind that Barney and Gill had yet to hold hands, kiss or exchange goo-goo eyes. Barney told Gill that before they even planned their first date, he needed to sign a so-called love contract to release the company from any legal claims if things turned ugly. "This is really uncomfortable," he told her as he picked up a pen.

He signed. She sighed. They picked a film. Now, they're married and have a 7-month-old son. They even still work together at another company that Barney heads. "It was awkward," she admits. "He had to sit down in front of my partner and say that I wasn't harassing him."

"I didn't even know these things existed," says Rubin of what are formally known as "consensual relationship agreements." "Once they signed the document, I felt much better as a manager. You have to protect your business from litigation."

Love contracts may enable legally safe sex in the workplace, but they're about as romantic as nooky in the office supply room. In the typical progression of a relationship -- from establishing exclusivity to meeting family to saying "I love you" -- where exactly does "We must sign this legal document so we can protect our company in case I freak out and make your life a living hell" fit in?

Here's how they're supposed to work: Once you and a co-worker become an item, you declare your status to a supervisor, who sprints to human resources, which then calls legal. Then you and your "more than a friend" sign a document claiming that you are in a consensual relationship and are not being sexually harassed. The contract also states that if you do begin to feel uncomfortable, you agree to follow company reporting procedures. (Your employer then has to investigate and deal with the issue.) "This isn't in lieu of a sexual harassment policy," says Jeff Tanenbaum, chairman of the labor practice group at the law firm Nixon Peabody in San Francisco. "This is an additional tool that employers can use to prevent harassment." Finally, you agree to behave professionally in the office and at corporate events and try not to nauseate your co-workers on a regular basis.

No hard figures exist on the number of love contracts, but Dennis Powers, an attorney and professor of business law at Southern Oregon University, estimates a few thousand are written annually. While a small number of companies have tried banning dating by co-workers outright, most don't attempt to enforce an impossible rule in hormone-charged cube farms, and so some turn to love contracts for protection from six-figure damages awards in sexual harassment cases.

Tanenbaum, who has written more than 100 love contracts for companies ranging from Fortune 500 firms to mom and pops, says he has seen a steady increase over the past decade. He usually receives a run of phone calls from skittish managers whenever a high-profile sexual harassment case hits the news. Even the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal was good for business. "It wasn't even an issue of harassment, but I got a lot of phone calls from people asking, 'How do you handle sexual relations in the office?'" he says.

Tanenbaum's first request came in the late 1980s from a senior executive at a high-tech company, who was dating a subordinate and freaked out when he read a newspaper story about a manager in a similar situation being accused of harassment and discrimination when the relationship soured. After joking that he needed couples therapy, not legal counseling, Tanenbaum whipped out an agreement saying that the executive's lover believed the relationship was consensual and that she would complain to human resources if she felt differently. "She got a great laugh out of it and signed it," he says.

Next Page: Before a meaningless office fling you have to decide: Is he or she contractworthy?

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