Employment Settlement Process

Slnlaw Employment Settlement Process

Following the case assessment stage, if you and your attorney have decided that it makes sense to pursue the matter further, the next step in our process is to outline your claims and positions in a settlement letter (sometimes called a "demand letter") and attempt to negotiate a resolution for you without filing a formal legal claim.

We'd like to help you understand why we do it this way and how it works.

Why a Pre-Suit Settlement Process?

Sometimes the answer is simple- you have been offered a severance agreement, and want to negotiate a package that better reflects the potential claims you would be giving up. This almost always begins with a private negotiation between your attorney and the other side.

Even if you are not considering severance, there are lots of good reasons to make a good faith effort to reach a resolution before deciding whether to file a formal legal claim. These include:

Cost: even under a contingent fee agreement with your attorney, there are out of pocket costs to consider in pursuing litigation, including filing fees, costs for deposition transcripts and, in some cases, expert witness fees.
Time: even before COVID, it could take two years or more to reach a trial in a civil matter, and those times continue to be stretched out as courts recover from COVID backlogs.
Energy: when you litigate an employment case, you will be expected to respond to discovery requests and give deposition testimony. This can take a fair amount of your time. It also means you will be continuing to re-live the experience that brought you to us until a final resolution is reached.

You may ultimately decide that it is worth it to pursue a claim despite these considerations. Most of our clients, however, see the value in finding out first if a resolution they can live with can be accomplished without all of that.

How Does the Pre-Suit Settlement Process Work?

From start to finish, there are basically five steps in the demand letter, or pre-suit settlement, process.

You sign and return an updated engagement letter.
You make the payment agreed to between you and your attorney.
Based on the information collected and discussed in the assessment phase, your attorney will draft a demand letter and provide it to you for your review and comment.
The final letter will be sent to the appropriate contact person at your employer/former employer, outlining your legal claims and inviting a settlement discussion.
Once we receive a response, you and your attorney will work together to finalize a settlement position, and the attorney will negotiate with the other side until we either have a resolution or it is clear that we are not going to reach one.

If the decision made between you and your attorney is either to accept a settlement or severance amount or not to take any further action at this time, then our engagement is complete and you have no further obligation to us, financial or otherwise.

If both you and your attorney believe the best course of action is to pursue a formal legal claim at this point, then we will walk you through what the next steps are with our firm.

Show Me the Process >>