Lawyers can handle almost any type of cases you throw at the, but there are some who have focused their practice on certain cases such as sexual harassment cases because they know for a fact that these cases are very controversial and can be very gratifying once you win it. There care various forms of sexual assault and if you are not familiar with it all but you somehow feel like you have been assaulted then you should not take things lightly. If you ever find yourself in a situation wherein you do not know if you have just been sexually assaulted or not, you can always ask help from the human resource department of your company and they would be the one to take your statement and assess the situation. It would always be best if you have a lawyer by your side when you go through all the legal proceedings because then you can be certain that all the correct legal actions have been made.
Quid-pro-puo and hostile environment are the two most broad types of sexual harassment. If you are bound for a promotion but your boss refuses to give it to you unless you repay him with certain sexual favors, this would be considered sexual harassment under the quid-pro-quo category. With cases like this, there is no winning for the assailant because whether or not there was an agreement made or consent was given, the person being assaulted can still sue. There is also such a thing as sexual favoritism wherein if you know of someone who has advanced in their job mainly because they are doing sexual favors for the boss, then you can file a case against them even if no sexual complaint was filed by the victim of the so-called assault.
As the name suggests, hostile environment is the category of sexual assault that would mainly be due to the surroundings of a person, be it through the offensive actions of the people in the office or the vulgar and insulting words your colleagues use that makes you feel uncomfortable. One thing you need to keep in mind is that there is always a limit to any joke and if you have ever made sexual jokes towards a colleague then you ought to say sorry because you might be accused of sexual harassment in a hostile environment. If a colleague has made a very offensive joke towards you then you can always file a case with human resource. You do not need to be a part of a conversation for you to be offended.