Google's Top Lawyer David Drummond Accused of Exploiting Power, Having Affairs With Multiple Employees

Google’s permissive culture surrounding workplace relationships has been an open secret for some time, and now new allegations from a former employee claiming one of the company’s top lawyers used his power to have multiple affairs with fellow employees have put Google under the #MeToo spotlight once again.

In a Medium post on Wednesday, former Google legal manager Jennifer Blakely detailed her affair with Alphabet’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, Business Insider reported. According to Blakely, the two had a consensual relationship beginning around 2004 while Drummond was married and even had a child together in 2007. When Blakely left the company after HR allegedly forced her out of the legal department, however, Drummond reportedly abandoned their relationship and began an affair with another Google employee.

“I’ve spent the last 11 years taking on one of the most powerful, ruthless lawyers in the world,” Blakely wrote, claiming that Drummond “did things exclusively on his terms” following the dissolution of their relationship, rarely seeing their son and refusing to discuss child support.

Some of Blakely’s allegations against Drummond first came to light in October 2018, when a New York Times story exposing Google’s problematic workplace culture sparked massive employee protests over the company’s response to sexual misconduct and allegiance to “protecting” the powerful men at its helm.

“Looking back, I see how standards that I was willing to indulge early on became institutionalized behavior as Google’s world prominence grew and its executives grew more powerful,” Blakely wrote in the Medium post. “Until truth is willing to speak to power and is heard, there’s not going to be the sea change necessary to bring equality to the workplace.”

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Kayla Kibbe

Kayla Kibbe is an associate editor at InsideHook primarily covering sex, dating and relationships. Her work has appeared at MEL Magazine, Health.com, Brides and more.