Closing the deal in employment contracts

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hi amanda hi josh what are we going to talk about today i thought we could talk about separation agreements or severance agreements a lot of connecticut employees come to us having been just laid off they're notified of the layoff and then they get this complicated legal document and they've never seen anything like this before they've probably never been laid off before and they're freaking out they don't know what to do they email us or they call us and they say help what do you say well first thing i say is take a deep breath try to relax uh i know you've heard that one before it's amazing how the the advice we give to almost everybody who comes into our office is take a deep breath we're gonna figure this out and usually we do yeah well you know this is well we see it every day josh a lot of connecticut employees don't and for most people this is the first time they've ever been in a situation like this and it's scary um but while maybe the first time you're going through it this is the stuff that we handle every day so we've been here a lot of other connecticut employees have been in this position as well so we're going to get through it um but the first thing you need to do is be able to think clearly right and that starts by taking a deep breath and second another one that's not a surprise is read it right let's read what the second separation agreement says what is the company offering you in exchange for signing this document and releasing any and all claims you may have against them that's the meat and potatoes of this thing right in order for you to get whatever it is that they're going to give you in exchange for you signing this document you have to forego rights so you can't sue them for discrimination or retaliation or something else um and you want to make sure that whatever it is that they're giving you is is good enough in exchange for that really big piece of um of satisfaction i guess you'd call it but you're giving them because they can rest easy and say this employee can't come back and sue us now right so read this thing understand what it says a lot of people say this is fine with me i think i'm just gonna sign it while our advice would always be look this is a legally binding contract talk it over with an employment lawyer some folks say i don't want to right maybe i can't afford it maybe i don't have the money to spend on a consultation or to talk to a lawyer so can i just sign it myself and that is is an interesting piece that we wanted to cover josh what do you think about that yeah so the answer is yes if you're a sane competent adult you can make any agreement that you want to i think the better course is to think about talking with a lawyer at least under the following circumstances number one you think something illegal or at least really unfair happened and you want to get a lawyer's take on it right so you think you were you were subjected to discrimination of some kind you were harassed you were retaliated against um you were uh you're you had a contract that was breached um something about this just doesn't feel right to you if you're going to give up your legal claims if you're going to say to them i will never sue you about anything that happened with my employment you want to make you may want to talk with a lawyer about about whether what you think is unfair is actually something that's illegal um another thing is when you read the agreement if you see statements in there that you think are untrue probably not a good idea to put your name on it for example most separation agreements these days say something like i got all the leave that i was entitled to and asked for why because you can't actually release certain kinds of claims under the family of medical leave act or other kinds of leave that you would be entitled to so instead what employers do is they ask you to certify that you got all the leave that you asked for well imagine that you didn't right that would both be you signing your name to something that's false and also would be it would be an indication that you've probably got a legal claim that you should be talking with a lawyer about right another um another red flag that would that might lead you to talk to a lawyer is that the agreement contains what we call post-employment covenants so post-employment meaning after the end of your job and covenants meaning promises basically promises not to do certain things so frequent uh post-employment covenants we see are non-disparagement you're never going to say anything bad about this employer or any of its people ever again some people are fine with that some people that makes them uncomfortable another one maybe a more restrictive one even as a non-compete you never had a non-compete during your employment but now they've offered you a separation agreement that says you're not gonna go work for a competitor for two years well that's something you really need to consider before you just say no problem and sign on the dotted line right i meet with a lot of employees talking about proposed separation agreements and i got to tell you sometimes my advice is this seems like a reasonable proposal i don't think you have any claims i'd sign the thing right so talking to a lawyer doesn't necessarily mean that that they're going to encourage you to file a lawsuit but that it also might mean that you have claims that you need to know about and it might be an opportunity for you to negotiate with the employer to get a more substantial separation package and if they're not willing to offer one and you have good claims it might be that you ultimately want to make the decision to move forward into a litigation process that's something you can talk about with a lawyer but merely going to talk with the lawyer doesn't mean any of those things are going to happen you as the employee you as the as the client remain in control at all times of all those decisions so those are some things to think about when you receive a separation agreement or a severance agreement and hopefully that's helpful advice for people and remember it's always best to talk to an employment lawyer before you sign after you sign this thing and it's an enforceable contract there's probably very little that we can do to help you so if you have questions and you're thinking you know what maybe i should get some more advice on this don't just sign it and get the advice later um the other thing to be really cautious about is a lot of separation agreements and severance agreements um they're only good for a certain amount of time so the employer may say you have 21 days to sign this agreement you have 45 days to sign this agreement don't sit on it and call us on the 44th day right you want to make sure that you're giving us and yourselves enough time to consider these things understand this contract and make an educated decision thanks so much for watching we'll see you next year