Potential Plaintiffs Should Be Referred to Employment Lawyers as Early as Possible

As a nonemployment lawyer, if you have a client or friend come to you because they are facing a difficult work situation—their boss has been escalating a pattern of discrimination/harassment/criticism of their work, or failing to protect them from another coworker who is harassing them—now would be a good time to refer them to an employment attorney for a consultation. Too often, we receive referrals after the potential client has already been fired—they finally gathered the courage to complain to someone internally, an HR investigation ensued, no meaningful change resulted, and lo and behold, a few weeks or months later, the employee is fired, ostensibly for unrelated reasons. Or worse yet, the situation became too unbearable, the employee quit, and then came to us, having never complained to anyone about what the boss/coworker was doing to them before quitting. Most employees go through this entire process without any legal counseling, which is unfortunate and can be easily remedied. Depending on the circumstances, almost every employment law firm will do a single consultation at a reasonable hourly rate without seeking hefty retainers; or, sometimes for free.

It is true that until the employer takes a materially adverse employment action such as fire, demote, fail to promote, or change the job responsibilities/hours of the employee, there may not be much that a lawyer can do in terms of filing an administrative charge with the EEOC or other local agency, or proceeding with a lawsuit. However, if the employee is facing some form of harassment or discrimination at work, a lawyer can counsel them on whether it is a good idea for them to complain internally as a first step (it usually is), even though the employee might correctly foresee that such a complaint will trigger a HR investigation, which, in turn, could precede a retaliatory adverse employment action and, in fact, sometimes set the stage for the employer to later justify that adverse action. This is still a process that will typically help the employee solidify their legal claim down the road. And while an employment lawyer usually cannot accompany the employee to the internal HR investigation, the lawyer can be critical in helping the employee understand what is at stake and address HR appropriately before they are fired.