To many people in the workforce, the idea of a mass layoff once seemed unfathomable. You grow so accustomed to your job and to the daily routine it enables that it essentially becomes a part of your life that feels permanently fixed. In the midst of the current pandemic, however, mass layoffs, along with resignations and terminations, have become commonplace. The idea of a mass layoff no longer seems like the boogeyman; to many in…

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. Discrimination is real.  Denying systemic racism, doesn’t make it nonexistent.  In 2020, we’ve seen a resurgence of people actively fighting against race discrimination in large numbers.  Police violence against Black Americans reignited a fuse.  Protestors have taken their voices to the streets, have launched social media campaigns, and have organized to fight…

Let’s say you have been discriminated against based on your race, but either work for a company with less than 15 employees or are an independent contractor.  You know that neither Title VII nor the Texas Labor Code applies to you.  Is there any other protection?  YES! The answer is 42 U.S.C. §1981. Let’s say you are an employee of a company with 15 or more people, but that you didn’t hire a lawyer until…

When I meet a potential new client for the first time, one of the things I always ask is what their goal is. One of the answers I often get is that they want someone to tell their story. However, I do not view telling a client’s story as a goal. I see it as a tool that can be used to achieve a goal. And social science research on persuasion has valuable lessons for…

Former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was widely considered to be one of the most employee-friendly justices in the Supreme Court’s modern era. Through her lengthy tenure on the court, Justice Ginsburg authored several opinions ruling in favor of employees and unions and has largely broadened the rights of employees. With the recent appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat of Justice Ginsburg, one should expect a significant impact on the…

Even if you’ve never seen the TV show or read any of the books about Perry Mason, criminal defense attorney extraordinaire, you know the moment I’m talking about.  It happens at the end each episode or book.  Perry Mason is representing an innocent man or woman, but things are not looking good.  The District Attorney, Hamilton Burger is on the attack, presenting one damning piece of evidence after another.  But then Perry calls one more…

As you may hear over and over again, Texas is an at-will employment state.  What that means is that there are limited protections for employees in the workplace.  At-will employment means that employers can change the terms and conditions of a person’s employment, discipline an employee, or even terminate an employee for any reason or no reason at all.  The actions of the employer may be unfair, they may be unreasonable, they may even be…