Tips for Women to Protect Yourself from Former Employee Lawsuits

These days, more and more employees who were fired are suing their former employers for wrongful termination. As women continue to start businesses at a high rate, educating oneself on how to navigate these difficult situations is vital to any budding entrepreneur.  Unfortunately, a great deal of employers don't know that they can protect themselves from these costly lawsuits. One thing you can do, for instance, is to choose employment liability insurance, commonly referred to as EPLI. Besides opting for this type of insurance, a carefully planned and well-executed employee termination can help you avoid serious repercussions.

Tips to Avoiding Wrongful Employee Termination Lawsuits

Firing an employee without considering several essential aspects may cost you not only money, but also reputation. Talking to an expert with experience, someone with a human resources degree who is well versed in employee rights, will help you find out how to approach this delicate problem and avoid a long and costly lawsuit that may destroy your business. A few tips you should consider to avoid a wrongful termination lawsuit are explained below.

Harvard WLA Conference: “Binders Full of Women” and Electing More Female Leaders

I doubt anyone on the debate room floor during the second debate could have predicted the way Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” explanation would take off. Of course, the moment the quote hit the airwaves social media exploded. By the time the tumblr and facebook pages appeared, the appeal of the phrase was clear: it seemed ridiculous that a business man and public servant with a resume like Mr. Romney’s would have had so little interaction with qualified women to require staffers to compile binders full of qualified female candidates.

Post-election, I’ve been thinking about an entirely different set of “binders full of women” – the overflowing intake binders at domestic violence shelters and women’s health clinics across the country.

With the Violence Against Women Act on life support, and women’s health clinics under attack by state legislators, women’s gains in the 2012 election – making up a record-breaking 19% of Congress – are as crucial as ever. A government that can let the Violence Against Women Act die is one that clearly minimizes American women’s safety and experiences, as we so often witness in the reproductive health context: who can forget the senate contraception hearing without a single female panelist?

Female Attorneys Practicing Abroad: Saima Anwar

This post is the first in a series of guest posts from @WashULaw profiling female attorneys from around the world, especially in countries where it is difficult for women to gain admission to law school and/or the bar. We are writing these articles in order to share these women’s struggles and celebrate their triumphs with the legal community at large.

Today’s attorney is Saima Anwar, a woman in her late 20s who practices law in the Swat District in Northern Pakistan. Saima is the first woman admitted to the bar in her district, and her road was far from easy. Even in the beginning, within her own family, there was resistance.

“I liked this profession since childhood, and it was my passion to become a lawyer even though female education was a taboo in our family,” Saima recalled. “The resistance grew intense when I completed my school studies and got admission in a local college.”

Rape Victims Face an Uphill Battle in Immigration Court

Attitudes toward rape victims have become a frequent topic of discussion in the months following Todd Akin’s claim that victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant and the acknowledgment by congressional nominees Steve King, Joe Walsh, and Richard Mourdock that they, like Akin, believe that abortion should be prohibited even in cases of sexual assault.  In the wake of these comments, advocacy organizations have called on policymakers and the survivor community to work together to enact policy reform. However, one group of victims has been largely left out of the national conversation: rape victims in U.S. immigration courts.

In the 1970s and 1980s, women’s rights advocates focused significant resources on improving the ability of rape victims to seek justice in civil and criminal courts. Prior to that period, courts in many states admonished juries to examine the testimony of victims in rape cases with extra suspicion. For example, from 1856 until 1975, the mandatory cautionary jury instruction for rape cases in California read: “A charge such as that made against the defendant in this case, is one which is easily made, and once made, difficult to defend against, even if the person accused is innocent . . . . Therefore the law requires that you examine the testimony of the female person named in the information with caution.” Some states required corroborative evidence, such as torn clothing or lingering signs of a physical struggle. Numerous states also had a prompt complaint requirement, meaning that a rape victim was barred from bringing a claim if she did not do so within a few months of the rape. Thankfully, efforts by women’s rights advocates have eradicated these practices from civil and criminal courts.

Raising the Bar: Gaslighting

This article, "A Message to Women from a Man: You are not crazy," is a great summary of challenges that still exist for women in our personal and professional lives. It describes "gaslighting", a phenomenon where men invalidate a woman's emotions. A woman will confront a man about her anger or sadness about something that a man has said or done, and the man will respond with some variation of "You're overreacting. You're crazy. Is it that time of the month again?" Every woman will experience gaslighting at some point in their life: whether at work, at home, or even from a parent or sibling. I've certainly experienced it both in relationships and in the workplace. Interestingly enough to me, the fact that I own a cat is usually a point of attack, even though my choice of pet has no correlation to a frustration I may have with a boyfriend or coworker. "You're upset about me not responding to your email marked "urgent"? Calm down, cat lady." 

Yesterday, Five Individuals Decided the Fate of Millions of American Women

Editor's Note: Ms. JD endeavors to encourage all dialogue about issues of meaning to women in the law.  At times, that may include issues that touch on the political.  Ms. JD is a non-partisan organization and the views of this post are held solely by its author and do not represent an official statement by Ms. JD.  We hope that diversity of all types including political diversity continue to be a part of Ms. JD's community. 

Yesterday the United States Supreme Court upheld the key provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The court’s narrow vote of 5 to 4 means millions of American women will have dramatically better health care.

ObamaCare phases in over time. Under its provisions:

Ms. JD Joins NWLC Blog Carnival in Celebration of Title IX with "On Graduations and Championships"

When Ms. JD was asked to contribute to NWLC’s Title IX blog carnival, I considered writing about how Title IX made it more acceptable for women to participate in law.  But as I thought more, I realized Title IX’s story is really about two generations who grew up in different worlds because of how the law changed our social constructs.  The strong women in my life tell that story best.  It explains why my Mom never got to play organized sports and why my sister was an all-state softball player.  I called them both on Sunday night and asked them to talk about what Title IX meant to them.  I tell Title IX’s story through their eyes.

My sister and I have always been best friends and confidantes.  Nevertheless, we had a yin and yang relationship.  While I was more likely to be found on stage, Kim was almost always shooting baskets or hitting a ball.  My sister attended every Nutcracker I ever performed and I never missed a game.  We say we made each other more well-rounded.

While our mother possessed many of these talents she never got the opportunity to exercise them.  As she explained, “I was one of eight children and to some extent, there was a sense of scarcity.  The boys were the ones who would have to care for a family some day.”  For my Mom, there were no school programs to fall back on.

Paycheck Fairness Act

In the coming weeks, Congress is expected to vote on a bill referred to as the “Paycheck Fairness Act,” the purpose of which is to “provide more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex.”  You would think that with women making up nearly 47% of the total U.S. workforce, wage discrimination would no longer be an issue.  However, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity, women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men as of 2010. When Congress enacted the Equal Pay Act in 1963, women with full-time, year-round jobs earned about 59 cents for every dollar earned by men.  That means that between 1963 and 2010, the wage gap only decreased by less than half a cent per year.  Economist Evelyn Murphy of the Wage Project estimates that over a lifetime, this wage gap amounts in a loss of wages of $2 million for a woman with a professional degree, such as an attorney.

When Women Fail on a Public Stage

Wall Street is notorious for its lack of female power brokers. Catalyst reports that women make up only 15 percent of executive or senior-level officers in investment banking and securities companies.

The fall of one of these women results in public scrutiny. Ina Drew of JPMorgan Chase is the latest casualty. Until May 14, Ms. Drew was a member of the bank’s operating committee and headed its Chief Investment Office, a unit blamed for losses in excess of $2 billion.

Traders in the London office of her unit made huge investments in extremely complicated financial instruments. In early April, the market turned against the investments and losses swelled. However, Ms. Drew argued strenuously at the time that the market would swing again and the investment would be salvaged. Despite her assurances, conditions deteriorated and Ms. Drew (age 55) announced her retirement.

Ms. Drew’s prior performance had been stellar. The Chief Investment Office contributed more than $4 billion of net income over the prior three years, nearly 10% of the company's profit during that time. Because of her success, Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s CEO, rarely grilled her at operating committee meetings as rigorously as her counterparts. Her favorable treatment was resented by other executives.

What No One Tells You Before You Go to Law School: You're Entering a Sexist Profession

Maybe I was hopelessly naive, but it really never occurred to me that I'd be treated differently in the legal profession because I was a woman.

I spent the several years before law school in a heavily male-dominated profession (software), and never had any issues. I'd done a previous graduate degree, same thing.

All my life, I'd been "one of the guys" and I'd never had much interest in stereotypically female pursuits such as shopping and talking on the phone. Frankly, I decided at a young age it was a better long-term plan to be smart than to be cute, so I went down the brainy path and never looked back. (I even went to a boarding school for science and math dorks!)

So, it was pretty shocking to enter law school.

My First Hint that Something Was Different

Like many soon-to-be-law students, I did some research on what I was getting into. I ordered a few books, talked to lawyer friends, and started browsing law student message boards on the Internet.

OMG. I have NEVER in my life seen such vitriolic, misogynistic hatred.

The idea that the people writing this stuff were lawyers, or law students, or soon-to-be law students was incomprehensible to me. I simply refused to believe it. Until I showed up to class, read over a few shoulders, and realized some of “these people” were actually my new classmates.

Hum…not great. But I chalked it up to a few bad apples and moved on.