"We are told that your written formal grievance appears to be the first one ever presented to the Elected Members under the Guidelines," the elected members said.

They said they therefore relied on "independent legal counsel."

Berkowitz first learned that the Docket Committee had retained an outside attorney when Secretary of the Faculty John B. Fox Jr. '69 sent him an e-mail message in early May. Berkowitz said he was surprised to see that the message had been "c.c.ed" to Jeffrey P. Swope '67 of the Boston law firm Palmer & Dodge.

Some members of the Berkowitz camp said they believe attorneys produced the Docket Committee's letter.

"It is clearly a document that was long in preparation, and it was prepared with a high degree of professionalism," Nesson said. "It was written by a lawyer."

Nesson, a lawyer himself, also expressed concern about the precedent set by the Docket Committee in their dismissal. He and another Faculty member who wished to remain anonymous both suggested that the committee might block future grievances from receiving a fair hearing.

Fox, however, offered a different interpretation. Explaining why this was the first time a Docket Committee had evaluated a formal complaint under the FAS Guidelines, the secretary called the procedures that Berkowitz followed "a last resort."

"Within the Faculty," Fox said, "there are so many ways to discuss these things that they ordinarily get resolved long before anybody looks up these procedures, much less actually uses them."