Legal Advice for Employees in Employment Disputes

When you get into a dispute with your employer, you might feel like completely lost. While most people get into serious employment disputes once in their lifetimes, large companies have lawyers that handle a few of these disputes every single week.

Your employer is simply in a better position than you. Your company has more experience and of course, resources to handle these claims. And if you haven’t consulted an attorney on the matter, you’re in at a serious disadvantage.

Let’s talk about situations where you should seek legal consoling right away.

When Should You Contact a Lawyer?

Below, we have some situations where we would strongly advise you to have a conversation with a lawyer as soon as possible:

• You’re not in a position to negotiate with your employer about your severance pay
• You’re concerned about how you’re being treated in your workplace by your employer
• You’re being pressured to sing “release of claims” you don’t fully understand
• You have clear evidence that your termination has not been completely legal

You Need to Document Everything

You don’t have to consult a law firm immediately after your termination. However, you have to be aware that the more you wait, the worse your situation may get. For instance, you may not be able to document these events as they occur, which can cause a big problem down the line.

It is your responsibility to prove if there was an illegal motive behind your termination, like retaliation or discrimination. In order to support any claims you make, you have to have a complete account of the events surrounding your termination.

Furthermore, you also need to talk with your former coworkers and see if they would be willing to testify in court. If you don’t have any witnesses, it’s basically your word against your company’s word. If that happens, you don’t have a concrete case and it will be more than difficult to back up your claims.

The Case against You

Keep this in mind: if you’ve been given a negative performance evaluation, if you were placed on an “improvement plan” and only then threatened with termination a law firm will assist you to evaluate your situation and see if you have a case at all.

More often than not, employers are experienced at documenting the performance of their employees in case they need to defend themselves against such claims. But if you manage to document the actions of your employer, you may have enough evidence to prove what you claim and the employer may back up.

Last Words: How to Find Legal Help

As we said in the opening paragraphs, without proper legal assistance, you won’t be able to do anything, due to your lack of experience. You should look up a few lawyers online, contact them all and see which one best suits your needs.