At Consumer Justice Law Firm, we help you recover from the harmful consequences of employment discrimination by upholding and protecting your rights under federal and state law. This includes doing everything the law allows to hold your employer accountable for the bias and prejudice they bring to the workplace.
Justice for employment discrimination victims looks like this: Making your employer (1) stop engaging in discriminatory behavior toward you,
(2) pay you compensation for the harm they caused, and (3) pay for your legal bills because you had to force them to do the right thing.
What Employment Discrimination Is
Employment discrimination is a workplace situation in which someone with decision-making authority or supervisory authority (1) shows bias or prejudice in dealing with employees that results in the mistreatment, exploitation, or abuse of someone due to a trait or status unrelated to the job or their ability to perform the job. Common traits or statuses targeted include race, sex, gender, religion, disability status, sexual orientation, military status, marital status, pregnancy status, mental health status, medical status, and others. This mistreatment can include direct, targeted harassment or seemingly neutral policies that have an unfair impact on a single group of people with certain traits or statuses unrelated to the job; or (2) allows this type of mistreatment to take place.
It can also include (3) sexual harassment in which an employee is subjected to sexual demands, comments, and hostilities; (4) the failure to allow reasonable accommodations for a qualified disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); (5) unequal pay for equally qualified and capable employees with equivalent positions, responsibilities, or seniority;
(6) retaliation against an employee for questioning, complaining about, or pursuing help for discriminatory behavior.
How Employment Discrimination Harms You
If you know or suspect mistreatment based on traits or statuses unrelated to the job, your qualifications, or your performance, the law is very clear that it’s wrong. Despite how it shows up, discrimination typically leads to tremendous harm, including:
- Financial Loss or Hardship. It doesn’t matter how hard you work if you’re not getting raises, bonuses, and prime positions due to reasons unrelated to your performance.
- Mental and Emotional Distress. When you’re subject to discrimination and harassment your mental well-being plummets. This can show up as anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, physical ailments, family stress, and more.
- Hiring Denials or Job Loss. At any phase of your career, unjust hiring and firing decisions can completely derail you.
- Promotion Denials. Whether you’re in line for a promotion, security clearance, transfer, or much-deserved assignment, being turned down for the wrong reasons is not ok.
- Career Stagnation. Whether your employer unfairly denies you growth opportunities, being forced into a career dead zone is life altering.
- Employer Retaliation or Targeting. When you stand up for yourself and insist on equitable treatment, sometimes it’s like adding fuel to the fire of mistreatment, and the problem grows.
- Workplace Isolation. Whether it’s planned or simply the result of ongoing mistreatment, many workers subject to employment discrimination experience isolation from colleagues, clients, and others.
- Unfair burdens. Being made to jump through hoops to prove yourself in ways that others aren’t or being denied reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) creates unfair burdens and roadblocks to success.
Steps To Take if You Suspect Employment Discrimination
Step 1 Document everything
From the first moment you realize that something isn’t right, start taking detailed notes including printing and saving any emails, pay statements, and other documents. Include dates, names, summaries, quotes, witnesses, steps taken or promised, threats, etc. If an employer wants you to sign anything after you’ve stood up or filed a complaint, talk to a lawyer first.
Step 2 Talk to a lawyer
The law upholds your right to a safe and fair workplace free from discrimination. But that doesn’t stop employers from misbehaving in big and brutal ways. A lawyer will clearly set out your rights, guide you through the legal process, and get you compensation.
Step 3 Enforce your rights
If your employer is directly or indirectly discriminating against you, never accept their nonsense, stories, or threats. They may not do the right thing when no one’s watching, but a lawsuit usually gets the job done.
How An Employment Discrimination Attorney Leads You to a Full Recovery
Enforcing employment rights shouldn’t have to be a complicated and convoluted process, but it frequently is. Working with an experienced attorney gives you the best shot at a full resolution and maximum compensation.
Knowing when, how, and who to sue is everything. Here’s how we help you:
- We know the law. Employment law can be complex, involving federal equal rights and non-discrimination laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or agencies like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
- We know the problems. We’ve seen, heard, and handled every type of obvious and subtle discriminatory practice and policy, and put our full knowledge and resources into everything we do.
- We know the tricks. We know the tactics used by employers to delay or avoid their legal obligations. They’d rather threaten, punish, or ignore you. We know otherwise.
- We provide legal guidance. We help identify and gather evidence, documents, witnesses, and more, and advise you on your rights and best practices along the way.
- We file with the EEOC. If you need to file formal regulatory complaints, we guide you through the process.
- We file a lawsuit. We file a lawsuit to hold bad employers accountable.
- We get you money. If you’ve been harmed and you’re entitled to compensation, we know how to maximize it.
Direct vs. Indirect Employment Discrimination
Direct discrimination is when you, as an individual, are targeted with discriminatory treatment. Common examples of this are things like unjustified negative performance reviews, promotion denials, hiring denials, open hostility or harassment, raise denials, isolation, abuse, and other direct, immediate mistreatment that arises out of a trait or status unrelated to your job.
Indirect discrimination is when you are part of a group or classification of people with a similar trait or status that is targeted for mistreatment through policies or procedures unrelated to the needs of the business or job. Common examples of this are things like having policies that prevent employees from displaying or wearing religious items or having a no-beards policy. If these types of policies indirectly impact only employees of a certain religious, ethnic, or racial group and are wholly unrelated to the business or job, it is likely discrimination.
How Fee-Shifting Makes the Wrongdoer Pay Your Legal Bills
One of the most important and least known facts about working with an attorney to fight back against employment discrimination is that you don’t have to pay out of pocket for legal help. The same laws that grant you rights, protect your interests, prevent further harm, and hold discriminatory employers accountable also say that the employers you sue have to pay your legal bills when you settle or win. Under the law, you should not have to spend your own money or take on debt to be treated fairly and equitably at work.
At Consumer Justice, we respect this fee-shifting provision for the role it plays in our legal system, especially since it serves as an equalizer, bringing justice to everyone, including those who otherwise couldn’t afford to work with an attorney. We value each and every client and every case, and appreciate that the law has carved out a way to center equity and fairness in legal representation for people harmed by dubious or dangerous employers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who does an employment discrimination attorney help?
We help anyone subject to discrimination at work. Perhaps surprisingly, employment discrimination can impact people at every level of your career from entry level to advanced, or from factory floor to boardroom table. There is no magic that prevents discrimination in certain workplace environments. Whether you’re freshly hired custodial staff or a neonatologist with thirty years of experience, you can face direct or indirect workplace discrimination. Guess what? Even attorneys face discrimination within law firms of every size. We help employees navigate discrimination in even the most tricky or complex environs, including those with the most robust legal teams. They may try to intimidate you, but they can’t intimidate us.
What can I do to prevent employment discrimination?
Unfortunately, nothing. Discrimination is unrelated to logic, fairness, reason, common sense, or business needs. It is born of nothing more than a flawed way of thinking that causes someone to have bias or prejudice toward people with certain traits or statuses. There is no amount of work performance, education, or attainment that can prevent you from being victimized by it, nor is there any legal mechanism for stopping it before it starts. Employers are well aware that the law prohibits discrimination in the workplace and yet it persists. However, though you can’t prevent it, you can adopt best practices for documenting it and combating it as soon as it starts. Not every instance of discrimination will require a lawsuit. Talk to us today to find out more.