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E18: Topic Buffet

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In this episode, host Thom Jennings and attorney Kathleen Jennings discuss a smorgasbord of topics from a Reddit post. The topic buffet (since Thom can’t spell or pronounce smorgasbord properly) includes diversity issues in hiring and otherwise, I-9 audits, and the effective use of attorneys in advance of an OSHA inspection.

The discussion closes with a discussion about At-Will employment.

Podcast Episode Transcript

Narrator (00:04):
You are listening to Cover Your Assets, a podcast that discusses the timely and significant legal issues faced by employers. Kathleen Jennings is an attorney who has over 30 years of experience in advising employers as to their legal responsibilities and has written extensively about employment law. Inner Popular Cover Your Assets blog. If your business has employees you cannot afford not to have your assets covered.

Thom Jennings (00:35):
Your Assets, the Labor and Employment Law podcast that is gaining popularity. In fact, it's the, it's the talk of the town. The question is, what town is that? But I'm here with my resident expert and sister, not necessarily in that order. Kathleen Jennings. Kathleen, how are you today?

Kathleen Jennings (00:54):
Doing great, Thom, as always, always good to be here with you and I am looking forward to finding out which town we are the talk of, because that sounds exciting.

Thom Jennings (01:03):
It's always exciting to be the talk of the town, and if, if anyone was listening astutely, they heard a little bit of that computer noise in the background. And that's because I am pulling up the statistics of the podcast and looking at e every month we've, we've had a growth of around 20 or 30%, which is excellent. So first and foremost, we want to thank the listeners, the people that are tuning in and obviously enjoying the podcast as much as we are enjoying making it. And then secondarily, listen, and we are, we are, I think it's, it's been an opportunity for us to, to learn some things about each other and just spend some time as brother and sister together. And then hopefully people are learning something in the process about labor and employment law, which I know you're gonna find this as shock sis. Sometimes it's not the most exciting topic in the world.

Kathleen Jennings (01:54):
I beg to differ, but what can I say? It's my life.

Thom Jennings (01:58):
It is your life. So let's take a look at the Numero Uno podcast. Do you wanna do last 30 days or of all time?

Kathleen Jennings (02:07):
Let's start with of all time.

Thom Jennings (02:10):
The number one podcast episode remains Workplace Romance.

Kathleen Jennings (02:15):
We must have a very romantic listener base. This

Thom Jennings (02:19):
Is true. It is kind of weird though, because we are brother and sisters, so, you know, romance. But anyhow, let's let's, let's go past that one. Legal and illegal interview questions. That is our May 5th episode is number two. And restrictive covenants comes in at number three of all times. So topics that interesting people are looking for. And today, today for this particular episode, we are going to tackle a bunch of topics. So this'll be even more exciting than usual.

Kathleen Jennings (02:52):
I'd find them all exciting, but if it's more exciting, I hope our, our listeners can handle that.

Thom Jennings (02:58):
In fact, fact, we're gonna call this episode topic Schorge Borg. I, I can't spell that word, so hopefully I can, I can look it up on Google to put it in the title, but what do you think? Topic? Schorge Borg

Kathleen Jennings (03:11):
Topic. Buffet. Buffet.

Thom Jennings (03:13):
We'll do

Kathleen Jennings (03:14):
Be, you could probably spell that easier. All right,

Thom Jennings (03:16):
We'll go with buffet for you. Schorge. Boger. But anyhow, that's, that was a term that our mother used to use. Remember?

Kathleen Jennings (03:23):
Schorge Smorgasborg? She did, yes.

Thom Jennings (03:26):
<Laugh>. All right. So our questions today are going to come from a Reddit thread that we posted in the Reddit devoted to human resources. And I don't who the administrator is if they ever get a chance to listen to this, but I want to thank them because we were able to post our, one of our show episodes there and then solicit some questions. So maybe we'll have a chance to do that again. Who knows? But this hr human resources Reddit thread is actually pretty, pretty interesting. We're able to use it to maybe gauge some topics and or gauge interest in topics. And that's what we're doing today. So we're gonna pull this from our Reddit thread saying, Hey, give us some topics.

Kathleen Jennings (04:09):
I like it. Let's do it.

Thom Jennings (04:11):
All right. So

Kathleen Jennings (04:11):
We're, let's hit the buffet. Thom,

Thom Jennings (04:13):
Let's hit the buffet. So, right, we got, we gotta get our plates. I wish we had a little plate sound effect. If we had one queued up, I'd hit it right now. Number one this is, this is coming from a redditor, it looks like s i t h e r e. Sit there, siter, sit here.

Kathleen Jennings (04:33):
Maybe it's a CTH person. Star Wars thing. Siter.

Thom Jennings (04:38):
Yeah, siter. Sit, sit, sit rep. I don't know. Anyhow, so, so some of the things that they, they asked about, and we'll start with this one, and if one of these takes off, we'll just keep talking about it. All right. First one is balancing legal business and ethical concerns with equal rights issues sounds pretty broad. What's your initial take on that as a topic or a discussion point?

Kathleen Jennings (05:09):
That is very, very broad. I, I think we would need to focus it better to really be able to talk about it in a way that would benefit our audience.

Thom Jennings (05:19):
Well, I, I guess then maybe, we'll, we'll, maybe I'll see if I can come up with this scenario. So you're trying to, you got legal business and ethical concerns with equal rights issues. So let's say you're hiring a secretary, and a secretary is traditionally a female position. Correct. So from a business standpoint,

Kathleen Jennings (05:40):
Well, maybe last century

Thom Jennings (05:45):
<Laugh>.

Kathleen Jennings (05:46):
See, when you start stereotyping positions towards certain genders or certain ages, that's when you start getting into problems. So part of dealing with these issues is having your mindset in the right place, which is, you don't automatically think of a secretary as a female. And you know, for some men, an attractive female that's, that's not a secretary. A secretary is a position that has certain duties, requires certain skills, and you look for a person who will meet those skills and, and do the job that you need them to do.

Thom Jennings (06:33):
Well, and that's a, I mean, you're, now we've really talked about the balance. There's, there's ethical issues, obviously there, so there's stereotyping as you're talking about mindset, all those types of things. Because I mean, legally, if you eventually hire, you know, you interview a, you interview a variety of people for a secretary position, but ultimately settle on a, I mean, I guess considered by society attractive female as a secretary. I mean, as opposed to somebody who maybe was less attractive but more qualified. You may not be breaking the law, but there's certainly some ethical issues that are coming into play as there're not

Kathleen Jennings (07:15):
There would be. And you know, it depends if the less attractive person or persons are different gender or perhaps they're older, you know, maybe you're looking at potential age discrimination, or are you excluding people from your consideration because they have a visible handicap or disability? Those are, are also issues that you have to consider. And I think, you know, the converse or, or a related issue is when you look at jobs that are considered traditionally male, such as construction work, you can't automatically exclude women who apply for those jobs just because, well, we've only had men do this job. No woman can do it. Well, you need to figure out what the skills are that are necessary to perform that job. If that includes physical considerations, they better be a, a part of the job and not just made up to exclude certain class of people. And then you have to evaluate each candidate on their own merits.

Thom Jennings (08:24):
And again, I, and we're, we're, we're talking ethical issues versus legal issues, but, but there's a very, I mean, very thin line when it comes to that stuff as well, correct?

Kathleen Jennings (08:34):
Absolutely. I mean, you, you wanna do the right thing or, or good employers wanna do the right thing ultimately at the end of the day. And that's how you stay out of trouble. That's how you, how you cover your assets.

Thom Jennings (08:47):
Yeah, and I think that is an excellent point because ultimately, if you are, you as an employer have a reputation and you have established yourself as an ethical organization than even when it comes to any kind of legal action, there's going to be more people that will come to your defense because they will say, no, this is a company that has a strong ethical background. And to that is, do you recommend a company adopt a code of ethics and post it prominently? Or is that something that could get them, get them into trouble?

Kathleen Jennings (09:24):
It probably depends on the company especially and, and perhaps the size of the company. There's nothing wrong with having a code of ethics, it just depends on what you say in it. And if you have a, a code of ethics like any other policy that an employer adopts, you need to make sure that you're gonna follow it. There's no sense in adopting a code of ethics if you're going to ignore it in everyday life. It's, it's better off not having a policy than having a policy that you don't follow.

Thom Jennings (09:57):
So the takeaway to that is, if you're gonna have a code of ethics, you better live by it. Otherwise, you're better off just acting in an ethical fashion. And you don't need a code for that. You just need to act ethically.

Kathleen Jennings (10:11):
Correct. Correct. And, and in this job market, you have to be aware that because there is such competition for good workers, the companies that have a better reputation overall are likely to attract the better workers, the the folks that are gonna do a good job and stay with you. So it pays dividends also in the employment market to be an ethical con company that does the right thing.

Thom Jennings (10:38):
Excellent. So let's go to number two. And this is one I know that you're gonna have an opportunity to, to speak about a lot. And this is how to use your attorney to best effect. And I will say this before I set you off on your, your answer here. I, people, I'm assuming that, you know, when it comes to an attorney, obviously attorneys are not cheap, but they're worth it if you utilize them effectively. I used to have a friend that said that they'd only called a plumber when they had three or four things that needed to be done, rather than have the plumber come out a bunch, and then it caused 'em a bunch of money. So I think on some level, even though you would benefit from working more for a particular client, I think long run, it's probably better for you to be used effectively so that people will continue to retain your services. So with that being said, and again, I know it's, it's broad, but when you, when you retain an attorney or just have someone that you use on a regular basis, what are some of the things that, that you absolutely should be using them to deal with that are ultimately going to save you money?

Kathleen Jennings (11:52):
First and foremost, you need to be honest with your attorney. You can't hide bad facts or bad information because it's gonna come out and it just makes my job as an attorney harder when I have to deal with them after the fact. The best use of an attorney by a company should be to make ha have the attorney assist in making certain decisions that could result in litigation and get that legal expertise and opinion upfront rather than once a lawsuit has been filed. So prevention and that kind of and, and getting information about compliance with laws and things like that in advance before you get in trouble, knowing how to comply with OSHA regulations before an OSHA inspector shows up, know your wage and hour requirements. All of those things are information that your attorney can provide to you. And yes, it may cost you a little money upfront to get that information, but when you use that information effectively, it should save you money in the long run because you won't be necessarily caught in litigation, or if you are caught in litigation, even though you're in the right, at least you're gonna win.

Thom Jennings (13:17):
Yeah. And, and in this day and age also, there's, there's a tendency for people when it comes to legal issues, same with medical things. They, they go to the internet. And I, you would probably agree with me when I say don't rely on the internet for information when it comes to employment law, there's so many nuances, and there may be a state law and there may be a federal law that pertains to a particular situation. So in, in the effort to save money, you may depend upon an HR person who says that they're confident that this law is in effect or not in effect, or something you don't have to worry about, and then subsequently the internet. But ultimately, it's best practice to contact your attorney and just get that information. And maybe it could be a situation where you have a semi-monthly meeting, put together three or four questions that you have for your attorney just to verify that you're doing things correctly. And that's the way to be proactive and cover your assets.

Kathleen Jennings (14:15):
Absolutely. And, and perhaps from time to time, even have your attorney conduct audits of personnel files, i nine forms, payroll, those kinds of things that are, can be easily reviewed by an attorney, and the attorney can spot the kinds of errors that will get you in trouble. OSHA 300 logs, things like that. A good HR person will be able to stay on top of developments in the law, or you hope that they will. And there's a lot of good organizations that will help them do that. So the internet can be useful if you're getting the information from the right place, but ultimately, if you have a situation where you're not sure about what to do or you're concerned that there might be potential liability, that's the time to talk to an attorney and, and get an opinion.

Thom Jennings (15:12):
And, and what has been your experience in terms of, maybe you have some anecdotal evidence of when you've done an audit and you found something that really could have been a potential problem and you were able to tell the employer to address immediately and then prevent a problem?

Kathleen Jennings (15:29):
Well, I nine audits come to mind because those i nine forms can be complicated. You have to have the right identification and things like that. And it's, it's the kind of thing if it's not done correctly and you get a government investigator coming and looking at those forms, you're gonna get in trouble. Same with payroll. I mean, these are are simple things that a qualified attorney can take a look at, not spend a whole heck of a lot of time. Now if you're auditing things like I nine forms, you're gonna have to go through them one by one, but it's gonna save you money in the long run.

Thom Jennings (16:14):
Yeah. And those are the types of things that may not seem real glamorous. Everybody thinks of these huge lawsuits that result in a lot of money, or there's some egregious thing going on. And I think in the case of an I nine or, or especially paperwork issues, in many cases, this is just clerical error, but unfortunately, courts really don't care about clerical error, do they? They just know whether it's right or wrong

Kathleen Jennings (16:38):
For the government. You know, I would say another example would be having your attorney come on site and conduct an o an inspection of your site in advance of any kind of ocean inspection, have your attorney look around and spot potential hazards that will not only save the company, the cost of an OSHA violation, which can get up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It could also save company lives, or at least maybe limbs and things like that. So there's sort of two parts to your OSHA walkthrough inspection by your attorney.

Thom Jennings (17:20):
Yeah. And, and from personal experience, I can tell you, I, when I worked, I've worked in the restaurant industry for a long time. There was a, a restaurant that I worked at that had a foodborne outbreak. And their reaction to it was to create a system where the internal inspections, pre government health inspections, was more stringent than the ones that the government was gonna do, so that when the government came through, they would always say, oh, you know, you guys look great. But ultimately having the company deal with it internally helped to prevent any further foodborne illness outbreaks, identify problems before the government inspectors come in, because I think the best time for you to come through is gonna be when the government ain't there. Because once they're there, then you are basically going in and it, i, it, it has to be more expensive for you to walk around with an ocean inspector than it is for you to walk around before the ocean inspector gets there. If there's not a problem,

Kathleen Jennings (18:20):
Well, potentially it could be. It, it helps to be proactive rather than reactive. And I can tell you from personal experience with clients, when an ocean inspector shows up and they see that a company has taken proactive measures to protect the safety of its employees, if it has a good written safety program that's documented things like that, that also goes a long way toward probably getting fewer violations cited by the inspector, depending on the inspector, because the inspector recognizes that this is not an employer that is careless or doesn't care about his employee, it's employees. In fact, it does care. And so it's, it benefits the inspector to just move on to somebody else who may have more hazards and, and care less about the safety of their folks.

Thom Jennings (19:24):
And I'm sure that an inspector has a record of previous inspections and that organizations have reputations. And if you already have a negative reputation with the OSHA inspector, you're already starting out in a difficult position. So it would be best to have a good reputation, like you said, having internal controls and those internal controls that are things that the OSHA's inspectors are going to be aware of, because it's their job to know that kind of stuff.

Kathleen Jennings (19:56):
Well, they're gonna ask for it. They're gonna ask for your OSHA 300 logs. They're gonna ask probably for a copy of your safety program. You better have one, you better have your OSHA 300 logs correctly completed and up to date. And, you know, those are the kinds of low-hanging fruit that you can get cited for if you don't do them or don't do them correctly.

Thom Jennings (20:20):
All right. And let's, we, we've got time for a couple of more.

Kathleen Jennings (20:24):
That's exciting, Thom.

Thom Jennings (20:25):
It is exciting. This has been a a buffet of information

Kathleen Jennings (20:30):
Or smorgasboard,

Thom Jennings (20:31):
Smorgasborg

Kathleen Jennings (20:33):
Smorgasborg,

Thom Jennings (20:35):
The red lines in investigations, what you must do and what you must not do now, red line, a line that you don't cross, and an investigation on investigation. I will have to come up with some, maybe because this, this is a pretty broad topic, but we'll say an employee investigation. So we'll start at the, at the beginning, one employee. Well, here, here's a scenario. Employees are engaged in maybe an extramarital affair. And that is against policy because since Workplace Romance was such a popular topic was we could start there and then maybe secondarily look at something with financial malfeasance and improper use of funds. But anyhow, one employee goes to HR reports another employee for suspicious activity. How far can an employer go without getting themselves into trouble, privacy violations, any of those things to, to ultimately get to what they're seeking, which is the truth, hopefully.

Kathleen Jennings (21:36):
Well, Thom, this sounds like a case for the sex police

Thom Jennings (21:43):
Police. Well, here they come

Speaker 5 (21:46):
Next door searching.

Thom Jennings (21:48):
Now I, I do want to say that we do not own the rights to this song,

Speaker 5 (21:52):
Love, fun no

Thom Jennings (21:53):
More. But we do love it.

Speaker 5 (21:55):
Love isn't fun no more.

Kathleen Jennings (21:56):
And is that because it's performed by your favorite artist, Todd

Thom Jennings (22:01):
Rungren? It is. It is. Okay. So fantastic. So we had to, we had to have, we had to have a little bit of levity in adheres because it's, it's been, it's been a smorgasborg, although I don't think you were, you don't seem to think I'm pronouncing that correctly.

Kathleen Jennings (22:14):
No, it's, it's a smorgasborg with a d

Thom Jennings (22:18):
Borg. I see. I thought it was Borg. Like a, like a, a borg like a robot or whatever.

Kathleen Jennings (22:23):
It's not a robot type thing.

Thom Jennings (22:28):
All right. Topic buffet. So back to the red line in investigations investigating employee, I'm gonna use the word malfeasance cuz I like that word. What is the red line? Is there a line that you cross? And this actually I think goes back nicely to even the first question. Which, what kind of ethical concerns do you have to keep in mind when you're investigating employee misconduct?

Kathleen Jennings (22:53):
Well, I would hesitate to say that there's an actual red line. I guess I would look at it more in terms of dos and don'ts that the investigator should follow during this type of investigation. You want to try to safeguard the privacy of the people being investigated as much as you can, but sometimes it's not possible to safeguard it 100%. So you should never promise absolute 100% privacy or co confidentiality because sometimes you may have to reveal a little bit in order to get the information you need to complete your investigation.

Thom Jennings (23:43):
I, I mean, is there a situation where you could be considered violating the privacy of an employee?

Kathleen Jennings (23:51):
That would be a creature of state law. So you would have to look at what the laws in your state say about what is considered an invasion of privacy. Certainly I would avoid communicating about an employee's private sex life to other employees. That's not necessary. Now, if they're doing things at work, then there may be ways of asking other employees, have they seen any kind of behavior that they considered not work related or something, but ask in a way that doesn't necessarily make an accusation. But more open-ended.

Thom Jennings (24:39):
Yeah, I, I had a situation where my supervisor came to me and asked me about a coworker who has a condition where they fall asleep on the job. And they specifically asked me if, if I thought that my coworker was on drugs, which I thought was a <laugh>. Yeah, it's now you can't see out there. Someday we're gonna have to do a video of this particular show, but not this episode. Cause you know what I mean, the show, we're gonna do a video someday, but yeah, my sister's look was was one of like, huh. But yeah, that's exactly what happened. A guy blows into, into my room, I have a teacher and says hey I'm just wondering, did you, this guy you're working with do you think he's on drugs or something, <laugh>? I said, no, I, he's got a medical condition that he told me about where he falls asleep at work on occasion. But I just thought it was interesting that, that that's how it started. So from, from an ethical standpoint too, I mean, it, it, that made me a little nervous as an employee thinking if this guy's gonna be a bull in the China shop when it comes to investigating employees, then yeah. And, and I don't know what I would've said if I thought the guy was on drugs anyway. Do you think he's on drugs? Well, I know he is on drugs. I was doing drugs with him. <Laugh>, I mean, you know,

Kathleen Jennings (25:51):
Is that what you told him?

Thom Jennings (25:53):
No, I wouldn't, I I wouldn't, even if I was, I wasn't doing drugs with him just for the record. And I, I wouldn't do drugs at work with anyone or just do drugs even by myself. It's not a good idea that we don't even need to do an episode to tell people not to do drugs at work. Unless you are working for a pharmaceutical company and you're getting paid to test drugs other than that don't do drugs at work.

Kathleen Jennings (26:17):
Yeah, and I, I don't know that test subjects are necessarily employees, so I don't even think it'll apply to them. Alright,

Kathleen Jennings (26:24):
But your anecdote does raise another state law issue that you have to be careful about. And that is defamation, which is saying something false that damages the reputation of another person. So that's another reason why you don't wanna ask questions in a way that accuses the employee of engaging in the malfeasance. But you wanna ask open-ended questions about particular behaviors that people may or may not have seen. Because once you accuse someone, if you ask the question, you know, is, is bubba on drugs? And, you know, it sounds like you're accusing Bubba of being on drugs. And if Bubba finds out about that and he gets blackballed in the industry because that gets around, you've got a potential defamation lawsuit on your hands.

Thom Jennings (27:24):
And, and it's important to note too, that when you're conducting an investigation for anything involving employees, that you ask as open-ended questions as possible. In that case, it was somebody saying to me specifically, do you think this employee is on drugs? Now we're talking defamation. As opposed to saying, I I would've phrased it. Do you notice anything unusual about Bubba's behavior? And that really can get the same information but do it in a way that doesn't sound accusatory. Now I I was working with somebody as last night when I was bartending, talking about their current employer and how a coworker accuse them of doing something. They have the, the meeting as I like to call it. And as part of the meeting, the accusations were presented to them all from, at least from this person's perspective as fact. And I think that that can be dangerous when it comes to investigations as well. If you're gonna ask questions, don't ask questions that are, and you know, as an attorney you can't ask a leading question, is this person on drugs? Is this person stealing money? Have you noticed anything unusual financially

Kathleen Jennings (28:34):
You can ask. And what's gonna happen? Is it, it sounds like you've already reached a conclusion and you may have employees that just go along with it because if my supervisor's asking me this question, they must already know what's going on. I don't know anything, but I'm just gonna agree cuz I wanna be a good employee. And so you also potentially taint the results of your investigation by asking those leading questions if you have no basis for asking them.

Thom Jennings (29:08):
And you also could violate any employee co confidentiality if, especially if you're, you're asking questions related to a specific accusation. Maybe an incident that happened when only two people were in the room,

Kathleen Jennings (29:23):
Potentially, I think I would worry more about the injury reputation in those particular situations. Because when you start communicating negative information about an employee to other employees, we all know gossip travels pretty fast. And anybody who played that telephone game when they were kids knows also things can get changed and revised down the line. And next thing you know somebody's accusing Bubba of shooting up heroin in the employee restroom.

Thom Jennings (30:05):
Yeah. All right, well, we've got time for one more. This one should be a quickie. I'm going to ask the question now, th this, it, there, there, we may do an entire episode for this. We don't know, we, we kicked it around as a topic, but for now we'll just deal with this particular terminology, which is at will. So the question here is, and not every state is an at will state. This goes back to what we said earlier, consult with an attorney to determine the status of your state if it is at will or not. We have 50 of 'em, so we can't necessarily go through the whole list right now and we're not gonna either way, we may, we may later. Cuz that would be exciting podcast content, wouldn't it?

Kathleen Jennings (30:49):
It would be exciting. I think we may do a whole episode on this at will employment thing because it seems to be an issue of particular interest to a lot of people. And without giving too many spoilers, there are some misconceptions about what at will employment really is.

Thom Jennings (31:11):
All right, so let's kind of tease that then we'll just ask this question just a quick answer. Does employment at will really mean that I could fire you for wearing red socks?

Kathleen Jennings (31:21):
Yes.

Thom Jennings (31:24):
That's crazy, but that's what it means. So if someone, if you said, Hey, I fired, you're fired because I don't like you wearing red socks, then you can do that in an at will state. So that'll set us up for a future episode on at will. And we'll close this by saying thank you to the Reddit community again for allowing us to post our, our stuff. And thank you for coming up with some of these topic suggestions and hopefully this'll be a forum that we'll be able to use a multitude of times.

Kathleen Jennings (31:53):
And thank you, Thom, for actually going there and reviewing these topics so that we have something to talk about

Thom Jennings (31:59):
And we'll always have something to talk about.

Kathleen Jennings (32:01):
<Laugh>, that's true

Thom Jennings (32:03):
<Laugh>. That's,

Kathleen Jennings (32:04):
That's, and you do like to

Thom Jennings (32:04):
Talk. That is one thing we will never have to worry about. But again, thank you for listening to the Cover Your Assets podcast, the Labor and Employment Law podcast, the number one rated in that is recorded in my recording studio. It, that, that is an absolute effect. It's, it's verifiable by me and of course by you as well.

Kathleen Jennings (32:27):
And well

Thom Jennings (32:28):
Deserved, well deserved. We put a lot of work into that. And until next time, this is your host at Thom Jennings. And wait, I forget, we've got two things that we always close every episode with takeaways and your contact information.

Kathleen Jennings (32:44):
Wow. Well, the takeaways, because we've had quite the smorgasboard of topics is a little harder to come up with one takeaway. I would say probably the biggest takeaway would be get a good lawyer and use that good lawyer to your benefit and be proactive rather than reactive to legal issues.

Thom Jennings (33:11):
And that is a recurring theme. And speaking of contact information and having a good lawyer, what is your contact information?

Kathleen Jennings (33:19):
My contact information is email is best way to get me kj j wim law, w i m l a w.com. Would love to hear from you.

Thom Jennings (33:31):
Awesome. And until next time, thank you once again for listening. Don't forget, share, subscribe, pester your friends, make them listen. Post a son Reddit, do what you gotta do and we'll talk to you next time. Uncover your assets.

Podcast Disclaimer

The Cover Your Assets-The Labor and Employment Law Podcast is produced by Thom Jennings of the Caronia Media Group. For more details, you can contact him at thom@caroniamediagroup.com.

The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Use of and access to this podcast or any of the e-mail links contained within the site do not create an attorney-client relationship between Kathleen J. Jennings. The opinions expressed at or through this site are the opinions of the individual hosts and guests.

Kathleen J. Jennings
Kathleen J. Jennings
Former Principal

Kathleen J. Jennings is a former principal in the Atlanta office of Wimberly, Lawson, Steckel, Schneider, & Stine, P.C. She defends employers in employment matters, such as sexual harassment, discrimination, Wage and Hour, OSHA, restrictive covenants, and other employment litigation and provides training and counseling to employers in employment matters.

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Department of Justice's Anti-trust Division Announces Anti-trust Compliance Programs Include Training for Human Resources

There is relatively recent increased attention from government enforcement authorities of anti-trust issues affecting human resource prof...
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AI Hiring Bias Is New Focus of EEOC

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) Strategy Enforcement Plan for 2024-2028 published in the Federal Register last year ...
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Keys to Address Employee Dissatisfaction and Activism

We are in a new age of employee dissatisfaction and activism.  There were critical labor shortages during the pandemic, and increased con...
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Procedural Accommodations: Efficiently Handling Employer Obligations

The ADA and other legislation – both states as well as federal -- often require “reasonable accommodations” in a multiplicity of settings...