| | November 2022MANAGEHRMAGAZINE.COM19unexpectedly terminated. Even the possibility that an employee may have a claim can up the ante for the employer and lead to a more equitable deal.Similarly, a company may use a severance agreement as a way to limit an employee's competitive activities after they leave. Executives, in particular, must tread with caution if presented with such provisions. Noncompetition and nonsolicitation clauses in a severance agreement are valuable promises to the employer but can severely restrict the executive's ability to pursue new opportunities if they're too broad and restrictive.Departing employees may not have the nicest things to say about their companies or colleagues. Even without a lawsuit or claim, word of a company's allegedly toxic or problematic work environment or practices can spread quickly among employees and job candidates. Companies are often happy to offer more severance in exchange for a non-disparagement provision that can protect both sides from the impact of negative comments.How do your national employment law attorneys understand that employers may claim they have a legitimate reason for the actions they took against employees? Please elaborate.While we understand that employers may state what appears to be a legitimate reason for what they have done, employees can often demonstrate the reason is not true and a pretext for something else. In the employment law context, pretext means a reason for an action that is false or not credible. It is essentially something that covers up an employer's true actions or motives. Most people implicitly understand what pretext is, and many of us have experienced it in our lives at some point -- whether in our jobs, in our personal lives or in some other context.An employer might have said that it fired you because of an economic downturn. But it will be up to you to show that this simply isn't true, and the real reason was, say, your complaint about the illegal conditions of employment. Pretext can also be shown based on factors such as statistics, differential treatment, witness statements showing bias or falsity, or pointing out that the stated reason makes no sense. Statistics can show that your employer has a tendency to treat certain employees in a certain way (for example, no female employees are in management positions), while people similarly situated can show that the employer's stated reason is simply not true.The message for employers in this is to be certain that reasons given for adverse actions against employees are credible, true, and supported by the evidence.Please shed light on the years of trial experience and work that Halunen Law has to protect the rights of your clients.Halunen Law resolves most cases prior to trial. But our opponents know that we will go to trial if that is what it will take to resolve a case. For example, after a week-long trial, a jury found that Globe University had fired Halunen client Heidi Weber because she had reported to Globe executives that the school was violating consumer fraud laws by misleading students about its programs. The jury awarded Weber damages of approximately $400,000. Besides the trial award to Weber, Globe was liable for other costs including attorneys' fees, and interest, resulting in a judgment in excess of $1 million.How did you keep track of the right ingredients that you wanted to have to build the relevant solutions portfolio? How do you make sure that your offerings help organizations to understand real-world requirements and fulfill them?Halunen Law was built on a rock-solid foundation of core values posted on everyone's desk: we mutually strive to be strategic, collaborative, passionate, and results-driven. As part of the team, our attorneys and staff are expected to live by those values. We select cases we believe in and come to work excited about the next new challenge. Our success would not be possible without the shared values that motivate and energize our extraordinary team.A 100 percent contingency firm, Halunen Law, is anything but risk averse. The firm's formula of careful selection, meticulous case development, and dogged representation yields winning results. We have a pretty amazing track record--resolving between 90 and 95 percent of employment cases we handle. Our tenacious, dedicated, experienced team consistently demonstrates what's possible when fierce advocacy and courageous clients work together to hold others accountable for their illegal actions in the workplace.Finally, we have emphasized our employment and whistleblower practice in this article, but the firm also provides the same expertise and passion in mounting class actions on behalf of wronged consumers. From the initial conversation to the conclusion of your case, we'll lead the way to the justice you deserve
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