Evil HR Lady: Hire an employment lawyer
Evil HR Lady, a Human Resources professional who has been trying to -- in her words "demystify your Human Resources Department" by way of her blog -- has posted a funny yet useful update on hiring a lawyer to deal with workplace issues.
I get a lot of questions where the answer is, “you need to speak with an attorney.” Attorneys are expensive, and while some work on contingency, most employment law cases aren’t these big cash cows that you read about in the news. So, you’ll have to pay up. In order to save you some money, I thought I’d put together this handy guide in choosing the type of lawyer you need to handle your employment case.
Q: What type of attorney should I hire if my boss is sexually harassing me?
A: An employment attorney.
Q: What type of attorney should I hire if my boss is discriminating against me on the basis of race/gender/or another protected characteristic?
A: An employment attorney
Q: What type of attorney should I hire if I want to claim FMLA interference?
A: An employment attorney.
Q. What type of attorney should I hire if I want help negotiating severance?
A. An employment attorney
Q: But what if my brother-in-law does real estate law?
A: Buy a house.
Q: Seriously, he said he’d help me negotiate severance for free.
A: Then you’ll have to buy a smaller house because your severance will be craptastic because you need to hire an employment attorney and you won’t be able to afford the bigger house.
Evil HR lady gets it right. Dealing seriously with a workplace legal issue requires wise counsel. Labor and employment law can be very nuanced and complicated.
I have spent more than ten years practicing only labor and employment law -- not real estate, not trust and estates, not corporate finance. It's been a full ten-plus years of nuance, and a non-employment lawyer couldn't begin to know what he or she doesn't know.
If you have a workplace issue, do yourself a favor and go with Evil HR lady's advice: hire an employment lawyer.
Contact me if I can help.
