Dallas Employment Lawyer Blog
Rachel Bethel Dallas
Trial Attorney
If you’ve experienced discrimination, harassment, or retaliation at work in Texas, you’ve probably been advised to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) or the Texas Workforce Commission (“TWC”).
What you may not realize is that the timing of when you hire counsel may be just as important as filing the Charge itself.
Waiting until you receive your Notice of Right to Sue may limit your options significantly. This blog will explain why.
As you may know, when you’ve experienced a legally cognizable employment issue, you have a limited window of time during which you must file a Charge. That window is called the statute of limitations for your claims.
What fewer people understand is that filing a Charge at the EEOC or TWC is not the finish line. It’s merely a starting point.
Once a Charge is filed, the EEOC or TWC investigates your claim. At the end of that investigation, or once 180 days have passed, you become entitled to request a Notice of Right to Sue (“NRTS”).
From the date the NRTS is issued, you have only 90 days to file a lawsuit. 90 days may sound like a reasonable amount of time, but it runs extremely quickly.
By the time workers receive their NRTS, they assume that finding a lawyer will be straightforward. In practice, this is often the most difficult time to secure representation. A 90-day countdown is now attached.
Law firms have very limited time to investigate the facts and potential value of your case. Most plaintiffs’ attorneys need significant time to investigate the facts, evaluate damages, work toward potential resolution, and draft a proper lawsuit up if resolution isn’t possible. If you hire counsel in advance of the Charge filing, your attorney can do all the work needed to investigate the claim first.
Attorneys evaluate cases for viability, and the Charge itself matters enormously to that evaluation. If the Charge was drafted without an employment attorney’s input, it may be vague or devoid of critical facts; have the wrong respondent named; or be missing boxes that should have been checked.
A Charge that wasn’t drafted with litigation in mind may foreclose claims before a lawyer even has the chance to bring them. Many firms are unable to take a case once the runway is too short. You are more likely to be turned down if a NRTS is in hand.
When an attorney is involved from the outset, the trajectory of the case changes. An attorney can help shape the Charge itself, ensuring that it identifies every viable legal theory and names every proper respondent. An attorney can also begin gathering and preserving evidence immediately, while witnesses are still reachable and documents haven’t been purged from a company’s systems. Early representation also means a lawyer can manage the EEOC or TWC process strategically rather than reactively.
If you believe you’ve been subjected to unlawful acts in the workplace, the right time to consult an employment lawyer is ASAP. Ideally, you’ll contact counsel before you need to file the Charge. At the very least, search for and retain counsel while your Charge is pending at the EEOC or TWC. Don’t wait until you have the NRTS in hand if you can avoid it.
If you’re unsure whether you’re still within your filing window, don’t wait to find out. At a consult, our Dallas employment lawyers will review the facts of your case and offer guidance on what to do next. The sooner an attorney can look at your situation, the more options you’ll have.