New York Employment Lawyer Blog

I recently had a client come to me regarding a severance agreement. This client had worked for a large company for nine years initially. She then left for three years to care for her child, and returned to the company for another ten years. After being told she was terminated, the company offered her ten months severance, which, according to the employer, reflected her length of service with the company. She had asked them to reconsider, as she had actually worked for the company for almost twenty years. However, the company would not budge. Therefore, she came to me to see what I could do for her.

I met with this client for over an hour, in an effort to understand her duties at the company, why she was terminated, her performance, and other important factors. During this time it came out that this client was clearly a victim of racial discrimination. During her years at the company, she had been referred to as “colored” and told she was inadequate because of her race. However, this client did not want to sue, she merely wanted what she felt was owed to her.

Following our meeting, I sent a one page letter to the company, asking them to reconsider their position, in light of my client’s twenty year history and in light of the racial discrimination she endured while at the company. Within one week (and many phone calls), I received a revised separation agreement, reflecting my client’s twenty years of service. In return, my client agreed to write a memo reciting who at the company used racial slurs. I can only hope that this company will be using this memorandum as ammunition to terminate this other employer.

The moral of this story is twofold. First, lawyers do not always complicate matters. Rather, on certain occasions, lawyers can simplify matters and get results when the employee is not able to. Second, when speaking with a lawyer, make sure to tell the whole story. In this case, I would probably not have been able to get such a favorable result had I not included the racial discrimination aspect.