It does make sense to hire an employment lawyer to handle various employment disputes and matters. It does not matter whether you are a conscientious employer, you need services of employment attorneys. Even though you can hire some issues on your own, there are matters, which are tricky and need legal expertise.
Employment law changes rapidly. Government agencies and courts issue new opinions, which interpret such laws daily. In fact, there are times when everything is overturned. Thus, what you may have known to be a law, may no longer be a law. Moreover, if your former employees bring lawsuits, you may suffer a lot of financial damage. Thus, it is very easy to understand why you need legal advice from a reputable employment attorney.
You do not have to inform your attorney each time you fire a worker, evaluate, or discipline a worker. In any case, lawyers are quite expensive. If you run to an attorney each time you want to make an employment-related decision, it is easy to go broke. You need to figure the situations that need expert help and ones to handle on your own. The following are some tasks, which you should consider consulting an employment attorney.
Advice on employment decisions
There are times you will have to make tough decisions concerning your employees. They include:
Firing
Sometimes, you may be worried that your employee is likely to sue or even seek legal advice. You can fire an employee for performance problems, misconduct, or bad behavior. The attorney will tell you with you are on the right course in terminating the employee or not. He or she can advise you on steps to undertake to minimize risks of the lawsuit.
Employee classifications
You should note that classification issues do affect a large part of the workforce. This can create a great potential for the increased liability. Before you classify a particular position or nonexempt or exempt, you need to consider seeking guidance. In fact, misclassification comes with hefty price tag. This may include several years of penalties, unpaid overtime for multiple employees.
Other decisions
You can wish to have a lawyer to review some critical employment decisions you make. This is necessary if the decision will affect a huge number of employees. For instance, if you want to lay off workers, change the pension plan or even discontinue a particular employee benefit, you should hire a corporate lawyer.
Lawsuits
If the former or current employee sues you, you should consult a lawyer right away.