There are certain skills that as we go through life we must obtain. One of those of those skills is knowing when enough is enough and it’s time to walk away. And it is a skill to be able to recognize that and act on the recognition. This skill is…
One the greatest rights we have is the right to a jury trial. While many employment cases never make it to a jury, employees still have this fundamental right to attempt to get his/her case to a jury. Over the last year, we have witnessed more employment cases being tried…
Summary: This more light-hearted article talks about the author’s recent experience with jury duty and how a lawyer’s perspective differs from that of a layperson. Immediately after I had the opportunity to pick a jury in one of our federal trials in September 2022, I had an entirely new experience:…
A common misconception in employment law is that to be a plaintiff you must have been or are a model employee. This myth prevents many potential plaintiffs from pursuing action against their employers. My aim in this article is to address this misconception and hopefully dispel it. In its…
According to federal law and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), employers cannot discriminate against employees based on their race, age, disability, or other protected characteristics. Employers also cannot retaliate against employees for complaining of discrimination. An employee who has been discriminated against must first present a prima facie case…
When an employee is hired, in many, if not most instances, he or she is required to sign some form of employment agreement. These contracts outline the duties and expectations of both the employer and the employee. Frequently, Texas employment contracts include an arbitration clause, which is an agreement between…
Recently, the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion that will have a significant impact in federal age discrimination cases against government employers. In the case Mount Lemmon Fire District v. Guido, the Court held the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) applies to government employers of all sizes. The ADEA…
In 1973, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark employment discrimination case, McDonnell Douglas v. Green, outlining a framework for analyzing cases alleging employment discrimination. The McDonnell-Douglas test, as it has come to be known, is applied in nearly all Texas employment discrimination cases.When the Supreme Court first announced…
A great deal of work goes into high school debates. While they tend to be an extracurricular activity that attracts highly motivated and structured individuals with a particular type of personality, these debates also requires an intense amount of preparation, regardless of who is doing the debating. High school debaters…
Arbitration occurs when a private tribunal, rather than a court, adjudicates a particular issue. Usually, the rules in arbitration are more relaxed than they are in civil litigation, but different tribunals or arbitration service providers have different procedures that can be very close to or very different from court procedures. Sometimes…