Most businesses don't think about hiring an employment lawyer until something goes wrong. An employee threatens to sue. The EEOC sends a discrimination charge. A termination turns ugly.

By then, you're playing defense. And defense almost always costs more than prevention.

The right employment lawyer isn't just someone you call after you're sued. It's someone who helps you avoid getting sued in the first place.

So call early—before you terminate a potentially protected employee, when an accommodation or leave request arrives, when a harassment complaint surfaces, or before you change pay practices or roll out a significant policy.

Where do you even start? I suggest these five questions.

1. Do you understand my business?

Your lawyer needs to understand your industry, workforce, culture, and business goals. Advice that is technically correct but practically impossible to implement isn't useful.

2. Will you tell me what I can do, not just what I can't?

Beware the lawyer whose answer to every question is "no." Good legal advice manages risk. It doesn't paralyze your business.

"What outcome do you want to achieve?" is always among my initial questions. After we discuss the pros and cons, if there is a legal way to get you to your preferred outcome, I'll get you there. The legal solution is always subservient to the business outcome—as long as that outcome is legal.

You don't need someone who automatically agrees with you, either. You need someone who will challenge a bad decision and help you make a better one.

3. Will you help prevent problems or just clean them up?

Ask about handbooks, manager training, investigations, wage-and-hour audits, and termination reviews. A lawyer who only appears after a lawsuit is filed is missing half the job.

4. How will you bill me?

Many employment lawyers will handle handbooks, audits, and training for a flat fee. You should know what you'll pay before the work starts.

5. Can we work together before there's a problem?

The best time to hire your lawyer is before you need one. Start with a small project, so you know how each other works long before a crisis.

🚩 There are also red flags to watch out for.

Be wary of lawyers who speak only in legal jargon, promise guaranteed outcomes, treat every employee problem as a lawsuit waiting to happen, or recommend litigation without discussing its business costs.

Don't hire an employment lawyer based solely on hourly rates, impressive credentials, or promises to fight every battle.

Sometimes winning means avoiding the dispute altogether. The best employment lawyers don't just protect your business when things go wrong. They help you build a workplace where fewer things go wrong in the first place.

      

"You might as well put your two weeks in."

That's what a manager at Anthony Roofing Tecta America allegedly told an employee who complained about harassment. The company is now paying $700,000 to settle an EEOC suit alleging that a vice president used racial slurs and sexual comments, and that employees who reported it to management and HR got nowhere.

The EEOC's Deputy General Counsel said the legal risk is "particularly acute" when an officer is the harasser. So when a complaint names one, here's what a company should do.

1. Take the complaint seriously. Listen, write down exactly what the employee says, and never suggest the employee reconsider or wait.

2. Wall off the officer. Remove the accused from decisions affecting the complainant, and tell the officer in plain terms that retaliation is off limits.

3. Bring in someone independent. Nobody who reports to the accused should investigate. Use outside counsel or an outside investigator, and loop in the board to the fact that the investigation is happening.

4. Preserve the evidence. Issue a litigation hold covering email, texts, and chat messages. Tell the officer not to delete anything.

5. Protect the complainant without punishing them. Don't move or reassign the employee who complained. Offer options and let the employee choose. Even a minor change could be a sufficient adverse action to support a retaliation claim.

6. Investigate promptly and widely. Interview the complainant, the accused, and every witness, and ask whether anyone else has seen similar conduct. Harassers rarely stop at one person.

7. Remind everyone about retaliation. Witnesses are watching how this plays out. Make clear that participating in the investigation is protected.

8. Act on what you find. Discipline the officer the way you’d discipline a line employee for the same conduct.

9. Close the loop. Tell the complainant you finished and took corrective action, without sharing confidential details. Check back at 30 and 90 days.

10. Fix what let it happen. Ask why no one stopped this sooner, and review who hears complaints about leadership.

The officer's title doesn't change the rules. It only raises the price of ignoring them, and it's not worth the risk.

     

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An office manager finds a sex contract in a folder on her desk. The COO asks if she got it. She refuses to discuss it. He fires her.

That's what the EEOC says happened at Gator Strong Services. The company just agreed to pay $25,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Twenty-five thousand dollars. Let that sink in.

According to the EEOC, the company's former COO subjected his office manager to a campaign of sexual harassment. He repeatedly made sexual comments to her. He humiliated her in front of coworkers. He hugged her without her consent. He shared intimate details of his sex life with a woman whose job was to run his office, not listen to his sexual exploits.

And then came the folder.

The COO left a sex contract on her desk. When he asked whether she'd received it, she refused to discuss it. According to the EEOC, that refusal cost her her job.

Think about what this woman allegedly endured. Showing up every day to a boss who treated her as his audience, his punching bag, and his prop. Being humiliated in front of colleagues. Being touched without consent. Having to navigate unwanted sexual advances from someone who controlled her livelihood.

And when she finally drew a line, she lost her paycheck.

Now look at the settlement. $25,000. For alleged harassment that escalated into an unwanted sexual proposition and ended with the employee's termination.

The settlement isn't just monetary. Gator Strong also agreed to a two-year consent decree requiring revised anti-harassment policies, training for managers and executives, and periodic reporting to the EEOC. In other words, the company agreed to implement basic protections that should have existed long before someone thought leaving a sex contract on an employee's desk was acceptable workplace behavior.

To be clear, these are allegations, not judicial findings. Still, there's a lesson here for every employer. Your anti-harassment policy is only as effective as your willingness to enforce it against the people with the most power. An employee needs a safe way to report misconduct that bypasses the alleged harasser, particularly when that person sits in the executive suite. And no executive's title should provide immunity from accountability.

For that reason, this employer has earned its nomination as the Worst Employer of 2026.

     

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Grace is earned, not owed.

On election night, Ohio's governor-elect reportedly let a phone call from her opponent go to voicemail. Vivek Ramaswamy said in his concession speech that his team "left her a message to congratulate her on her victory." Amy Acton didn't pick up.

Some people will call that petty. Concession calls are a ritual. The loser calls, the winner answers, and everyone performs a little grace for the cameras and the country.

That misses the point.

Two weeks before the election, the Ramaswamy campaign spent millions to air an ad featuring Acton's estranged mother, who called her daughter a liar and suggested she needed help. Acton has spoken openly about being removed from her mother's home at age 12, after her stepfather was charged with raping her. The ad drew condemnation from Republicans and Democrats alike, including Governor DeWine, who called on the campaign to pull it. The campaign defended it and continued to run it.

That wasn't a policy disagreement or even a hard-hitting contrast ad. It was a deliberate decision to weaponize the most painful chapter of someone's childhood.

So did Governor-Elect Acton owe Ramaswamy a conversation on election night? And what do we owe anyone who has intentionally mistreated us?

We teach people, especially professionals, to be the bigger person. Don't burn bridges. Take the call. Smile at the handshake. That is good advice for ordinary friction, like a sharp-elbowed negotiation, a bruising cross-examination, or a rival who plays hard but plays fair.

It's not good advice, however, for someone who looked at your worst moments and decided to use them against you. Grace is a gift. It is not a debt that accrues to whoever happens to be on the other side of the table. Someone who intentionally mistreats you does not get to cash in on your civility the moment it becomes convenient for them.

I see this in workplaces all the time. The manager who undermined an employee for months and then expects a warm exit interview. The executive who ran a smear campaign and then wants a "clean break" and a glowing reference. The business partner who went scorched-earth and now wants to "move forward." They want the benefits of decency without having practiced any.

You can be professional without being warm. You can be polite without being available. You can decline the call and still behave lawfully, avoid retaliation, and keep your own conduct beyond reproach. Boundaries and bitterness are not the same thing.

Respect is something people earn by how they treat others. When someone spends weeks and millions of dollars showing you who they are, you are allowed to believe them.

Leaders should remember that before they approve the next ad, the next email, or the next performance review. Your conduct is also your reputation. And sometimes the consequence of your conduct is a voicemail.

Here's what I read this week that you should read, too. 

Project 2025's Impact on Employment Policy and Practice is Controversial but Undeniable — HR Daily Advisor

Employees Had to Arrive Early. The Manager Had the Keys. Who Pays for the Wait? — The Employer Handbook

What Sycophantic AI Can Cost Your Organization — Harvard Business Review

Till Dissolution Do Us Part: Inside Weil's Biglaw Breakup — Above the Law

EEOC signals rollback of Pregnant Workers Fairness Act regulations — HR Dive

Horseshoe Casino Baltimore to pay $150,000 to settle bias suit — The Baltimore Sun

Lockheed Will Pay $29.5 Million Over Claims It Discriminated Against White Employees — 24/7 Wall St.

Democrats seize Congress in sweeping midterm repudiation of Trump — Virginia Lawyers Weekly

'Are You With Us, the Workers, Or Are You With the Big Tech Billionaires?' — Politico

Self-checkout was supposed to cut costs. Instead, it created a problem retailers didn't anticipate — Fast Company

Columbus is losing breweries amid rising costs, lower demand — NBC4 Columbus 

     

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"Quite simply, full means full and any means any."

That's a federal judge explaining to a plaintiff the meaning of a general release.

Jackilyn Bunnell sued William Beaumont Hospital for pregnancy discrimination and FMLA interference. She lost on summary judgment, won a partial reversal at the Sixth Circuit, and on remand sat down for a settlement conference with Judge Brandy McMillion. After hours of negotiation, the parties reached a deal that included a full release of all claims.

Then the deal started to move.

First she wanted a structured settlement. The court reminded her that was never a term. Next she wanted the release narrowed to employment claims, so she could carve out possible medical malpractice claims involving her minor child. Then came still more asks: 21 additional names in the non-disparagement clause, a different job title in her separation letter, and a third-party number for employment verification.

The court said no to all of it. She had to sign the settlement agreement by a date certain or risk contempt. Her lawyers, who said they couldn't ethically pursue her position, were allowed to withdraw, with their fees protected.

The timing here is what matters. The malpractice and other concerns never came up during negotiations. They surfaced only after the structured settlement idea died. That wasn't negotiated either.

For employers, the lesson is that the scope of the release is a material term. Settle it in the room. Put "full release of all claims" in the term sheet and get signatures before anyone leaves the conference. You won't always have a judge who sat through the whole negotiation and remembers every word. "He said/she said" motions to enforce settlements are messy, expensive, and uncertain.

If you're paying for a general release, make sure you get one, and make sure the other side understands it before they sign. A general release is just that: general.

     

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