Is Your Employee the Perfect Plaintiff in a Termination Case?

Continuing their Employment Law in Focus series in Today’s General Counsel, Woods Rogers’ Principals and management-side labor and employment lawyers Anne Bibeau and Leah Stiegler share how businesses and legal departments can respond when a fired employee becomes a plaintiff. Employees with clean performance records, sympathetic backstories, and well-documented objections to company actions are often the ones juries find most compelling.

Anne and Leah emphasize that poor timing, like firing someone shortly after they’ve raised a legal concern, fuels suspicion, even if the employer had valid reasons. Courts often scrutinize whether employers documented performance issues consistently or only began recording concerns after protected activity (like a discrimination complaint) occurred.

To avoid these pitfalls, Anne and Leah describe how consistent policies, timely documentation, and treating employees with fairness and transparency can mitigate risk. Clear communication and evenhanded enforcement of rules are key. “Many states now have whistleblower laws that protect an employee from retaliation for raising, in good faith, what they believe is a violation of law in the workplace,” the authors write.

Read their column in Today’s General Counsel.