5 ms·

I think they mean that you should document everything, then express your concerns to HR in a non-confrontational way, then quietly bring your documentation to a

I think they mean that you should document everything, then express your concerns to HR in a non-confrontational way, then quietly bring your documentation to a lawyer if nothing changes. The documentation is your "plan B" which HR doesn't need to know about.

andrewmcwatters 6y ago
Yes.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Documenting everything is good advice, but it can give false hope to people in these situations. Hiring a lawyer is never as easy, cheap, or as quick as it sounds from internet comments. It's easy to armchair quarterback these situations and talk about hypothetically lawyering up, but what's the endgame? Suing your company won't suddenly convert a toxic job into a happy job, regardless of the outcome. Settlements, if they ever arrive, are rarely significant enough to make a financial difference unless someone has a truly home-run protected class harassment case with hard evidence (not just verbal conversations recited from memory). Good lawyers won't take cases that don't appear winnable from the start. However, there are plenty of bad lawyers who will happily give people false hope about their chances and then bill as much as they can get away with before the client gives up. "Plan B" should always be to find another job ASAP, if possible. (Not easy in the author's case).
- meekrohprocess 6y ago
  Yeah. It's always a bad situation, and really the best we can do is empathise when people have to go through it. Voting with your feet is usually the best policy, but people with visa issues have an especially hard time with that. Sadly, asking our representatives for visa reforms to avoid putting people in indentured positions doesn't seem to accomplish much. And some people will choose to demand justice even when it isn't the best move for their career or personal lives. I don't think it's right to admonish that.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Good lawyers won't take cases that don't appear winnable from the start. Very false. Generally, the difference between a good lawyer and a bad lawyer is that the good lawyer will counsel the client about the chances of not winning the case, especially after discovery has concluded, while a bad lawyer won't. If the the winnability of a case was apparent at the start, there wouldn't be a case as the parties would settle before a formal lawsuit was filed. This happens very frequently, especially for labor cases where the employee has documented instances of harassment. A lot of cases that appear to be "winnable" at the beginning turn out not to be winnable based on evidence that becomes available during discovery, and a lot of cases that didn't appear to be winnable turn out to be slam dunks after discovery. Most of the landmark cases today were cases that didn't appear "winnable" at the start (see, e.g., the DuPont and Erin Brokovich cases). Moreover, for most cases of this type (and generally for almost all civil cases involving individual torts), lawyers work on a contingency basis for plaintiffs, so they only get paid if they win. The only lawyers that won't handle civil torts for individual clients on a contingency basis are the bad ones who don't expect to win, or the truly amazing ones that charge fixed or hourly fees because they're so good that they can resolve the case without doing the amount of work that would justify a 30% or 40% fee.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    The point was that good lawyers won't take blatantly unwinnable cases. At some point or another, a lawyer must start putting their name on the line for the cases they take. If a client arrives without a shred of usable evidence or a blatantly unbelievable story (happens frequently) then a good lawyer is not going to throw their reputation on the line to see if it pans out. The legal world isn't as big as you might think, and lawyers can expect to run into a lot of the same other lawyers, judges, and so on for decades of their career. Taking obviously unwinnable cases is a quick way to get yourself branded as a toxic lawyer. This Medium article is a good example of a case that would be challenging from the start. Much of what the author claims comes from unrecorded meetings, in-person interactions, and other situations that lack any usable evidence. However, the author also goes on record admitting that they were struggling to finish their work and other such performance issues (Yes, I know it's from the company's abuse, but think in terms of evidence here). If anything, publishing this Medium article has done the author far more harm than good.

andrewmcwatters 6y ago

Yes.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

Documenting everything is good advice, but it can give false hope to people in these situations. Hiring a lawyer is never as easy, cheap, or as quick as it sounds from internet comments. It's easy to armchair quarterback these situations and talk about hypothetically lawyering up, but what's the endgame? Suing your company won't suddenly convert a toxic job into a happy job, regardless of the outcome. Settlements, if they ever arrive, are rarely significant enough to make a financial difference unless someone has a truly home-run protected class harassment case with hard evidence (not just verbal conversations recited from memory). Good lawyers won't take cases that don't appear winnable from the start. However, there are plenty of bad lawyers who will happily give people false hope about their chances and then bill as much as they can get away with before the client gives up. "Plan B" should always be to find another job ASAP, if possible. (Not easy in the author's case).

meekrohprocess 6y ago
Yeah. It's always a bad situation, and really the best we can do is empathise when people have to go through it. Voting with your feet is usually the best policy, but people with visa issues have an especially hard time with that. Sadly, asking our representatives for visa reforms to avoid putting people in indentured positions doesn't seem to accomplish much. And some people will choose to demand justice even when it isn't the best move for their career or personal lives. I don't think it's right to admonish that.
gamblor956 6y ago
Good lawyers won't take cases that don't appear winnable from the start. Very false. Generally, the difference between a good lawyer and a bad lawyer is that the good lawyer will counsel the client about the chances of not winning the case, especially after discovery has concluded, while a bad lawyer won't. If the the winnability of a case was apparent at the start, there wouldn't be a case as the parties would settle before a formal lawsuit was filed. This happens very frequently, especially for labor cases where the employee has documented instances of harassment. A lot of cases that appear to be "winnable" at the beginning turn out not to be winnable based on evidence that becomes available during discovery, and a lot of cases that didn't appear to be winnable turn out to be slam dunks after discovery. Most of the landmark cases today were cases that didn't appear "winnable" at the start (see, e.g., the DuPont and Erin Brokovich cases). Moreover, for most cases of this type (and generally for almost all civil cases involving individual torts), lawyers work on a contingency basis for plaintiffs, so they only get paid if they win. The only lawyers that won't handle civil torts for individual clients on a contingency basis are the bad ones who don't expect to win, or the truly amazing ones that charge fixed or hourly fees because they're so good that they can resolve the case without doing the amount of work that would justify a 30% or 40% fee.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  The point was that good lawyers won't take blatantly unwinnable cases. At some point or another, a lawyer must start putting their name on the line for the cases they take. If a client arrives without a shred of usable evidence or a blatantly unbelievable story (happens frequently) then a good lawyer is not going to throw their reputation on the line to see if it pans out. The legal world isn't as big as you might think, and lawyers can expect to run into a lot of the same other lawyers, judges, and so on for decades of their career. Taking obviously unwinnable cases is a quick way to get yourself branded as a toxic lawyer. This Medium article is a good example of a case that would be challenging from the start. Much of what the author claims comes from unrecorded meetings, in-person interactions, and other situations that lack any usable evidence. However, the author also goes on record admitting that they were struggling to finish their work and other such performance issues (Yes, I know it's from the company's abuse, but think in terms of evidence here). If anything, publishing this Medium article has done the author far more harm than good.