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Brendan Cox was a tall and well-built man with the brightest blue eyes that Camilla had ever seen. His smile was contagious, with dimples that could catch a person's attention from a mile away but he was definitely not who she had anticipated. On the phone, Brendan had sounded gruff, which was why the cheerful bloke before her was a surprise. Then again, she had learnt over the years that people were always capable of surprising you.
With his legs outstretched, Brendan placed a folder on her desk. "I didn't want it to come to this," he explained, his smile diminishing slightly. "You understand how hard it is to build yourself up as a solicitor, it takes a long time and long hours. I didn't want my job to be compromised because of this ... issue. However, it's got to the point where I don't feel comfortable where I'm working at all."
Camilla leaned forward slightly, pressing her elbows against the table. "And you shouldn't feel like that at all," she added, with a slight grimace. She couldn't imagine having to work, wondering when you were going to be made to feel uncomfortable once again. "I've had a look at the notes you emailed me and something caught my attention. You said that you're going to leave your job?"
Brendan almost looked ashamed at her question, but nodded. "If I'm going to be taking this further, I can't work there still, not when she'll be there every single day."
Camilla surveyed him quietly for a moment, contemplating her options. When her clients were suing for discrimination, in this case sexual harassment, she would always convince them to remain at their workplace if they could. It tended to cause those being sued a significant amount of discomfort and would eventually result in help in the case. However, since she had been working, the amount of people who stayed on after suing a boss was next to nothing. The working relationship was already ruined by then.
"What I tend to suggest is remaining in your job until we move forward and I know it isn't the best of situations but your law firm is quite big. Once this case catches, it may go big," she warned. "And in these situations, everyone is going to try and catch hold of the details and attempt to pretend your working situation is perfect. So your employer would be the one uncomfortable in this situation too, but there is a very likely chance you would eventually could fired regardless. However even that means it could help you in the end too."
Brendan wracked a hand through his hair and sighed, "I haven't got another job lined up yet, so I'd have to do that. But I'm concerned that they'll be doing the firing before we've even got a court date set up, I know how these things work. It's just a lot different when you're the one who is in that hole, you know?"
Camilla had never been in a situation like that before, so she certainly couldn't pretend that she understood. However, she'd had so many clients that were similar to him in that regard that she could perceive how it felt. In fact, this was one of the many reasons why she was a solicitor – to help people like this who were being put in a situation that they felt as though they couldn't do anything.
