Employment

Structure Law Group, LLP Austin employment attorneys represent major corporations and startups, in all phases of their development, navigate the complex issues involved with employment. SLG is ideally situated to help your Austin company protect itself from disputes that emerge from employment relations.

Our job is to reduce the risk of lawsuits against your company but also mitigate the damage done by lawsuits that do emerge. In our experience, most employee disputes can be avoided simply by adhering to the best practices outlined by your state.

The vast majority of all employment disputes are completely avoidable. The best way to avoid such lawsuits is to have a clearly-defined policy in place for handling issues as they arise. Most every business relationship can be conducted in a manner that minimizes your company’s liability.

These simple documents can assist in preventing and defending damaging sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, contract dispute, and hostile work environment lawsuits:

• Employee contracts
• Employment handbooks
• Executive compensation agreements
• Executive contracts
• Non-disclosure agreements
• Severance agreements

Drafting agreements that protect your Austin, TX company’s interests is essential to operating in the modern business climate. Our Austin employment law attorneys will help you draft policies that make your employees feel safe and also protect you from claims or disputes that arise in the normal course of doing business.

The State of Texas has civil rights legislation that mostly absorbs federal law into its own state laws. Other states expand on federal law to offer civil protections to other classes beyond race, religion, creed, age, disability, and gender. In accord with recent Supreme Court decisions, gender now includes sexual orientation and gender non-conformance. The City of Austin recently created an Office of Civil Rights to help individuals file claims of discrimination.

Because our firm has decades of experience operating in labor-friendly California, we are more than prepared to help your business navigate Texas’ labor regulations. Our services include:

• Employee misclassification lawsuits
• Federal and state tax requirements
• Workers’ compensation insurance and agreements
• Advertising of jobs and positions
• Hiring and firing decisions
• Employee discipline and write-up procedures
• Employee discrimination lawsuits
• Hostile work environment lawsuits
• Sexual harassment lawsuits

SLG has helped Fortune 500 companies and new start-ups draft important employment contracts, handbooks, and policies that protect their company from liability. More often than not, companies find themselves in a difficult position because they failed to take these matters into consideration.

SLG can help your ATX company draft employment agreements that are enforceable under Texas law. This includes agreements that protect your valuable intellectual property from competitors. This includes protecting trade secrets, proprietary secrets, and other confidential information.

Although non-compete contracts are unenforceable in California, they are enforceable in Texas. While federal regulators are currently attempting to revise Texas’s non-compete law, they have yet to successfully accomplish this. While non-competes are enforceable in Texas, the law currently only provides an exception which that prevents employment mobility. Our Austin employment attorneys can help your company draft enforceable non-compete agreements, non-disclosure agreements, and other provisions that prevent your trade secrets from disclosure.

Employment handbooks are widely lauded by corporate attorneys because they disclose the relevant policies a company has instituted to protect itself from liability emerging from employee disputes. The employment handbook ensures that your employees are aware of your company’s policies while providing remedies to issues that do emerge, in turn preventing damaging lawsuits. They provide your employees with clear expectations while also informing them of your company’s legal obligations.

Typically, employee handbooks will contain all of the following information:

• Waiver discussing “at will” employment
• Policies on discrimination and harassment
• Remedies for employees to file complaints concerning discrimination or harassment
• Work schedules
• Accrual of paid leave
• Workers’ compensation matters
• Workplace safety
• Intellectual property

Comprehensive and well-thought-out employee handbooks also provide information on a company’s goals and values. SLG’s labor attorneys will work closely with your Austin business to ensure that your employee handbook covers all of your bases. A well-drafted employee handbook protects your company from damaging liability and lawsuits filed by employees.

Terminating an employee is a delicate matter and must be handled in accordance with prevailing state and federal regulations. Otherwise, damaging lawsuits can emerge based on misunderstandings. SLG’s Austin employment attorneys assist companies on best practices for severance procedures and protect your company’s intellectual property from vindictive employees. We can help your company draft severance agreements and employee contracts in a manner that protects your intellectual property and minimizes your exposure to liability.

Our services include:

• Developing comprehensive policies for human resources departments to handle employment discrimination and hostile work environment complaints
• Outline corrective actions for handling employee disciplinary matters
• Design checklists to ensure that your termination procedures are in accordance with state and federal law

State and federal law dictate whether or not your employment and termination procedures are legal and enforceable. Well-written severance agreements can protect your company’s ability to move forward while allowing your employee to move on.

When employment disputes emerge, lawsuits may be inevitable. However, SLG has decades of experience protecting companies from damaging claims and defending company’s interests. While our goal is to avoid these matters before they become lawsuits, that isn’t always possible. SLG has experience defending our clients from employee lawsuits on matters of discrimination, hostile work environment, employee misclassification, wage and hour matters, and more.

Structure Law Group, LLP has locations in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, and Austin, TX. We offer representation to both new and established businesses in the tech sector and beyond. With experience defending clients in California, which has the most advanced labor regulations of any developed nation on earth, we can help your Austin business avoid the reputational and monetary damage caused by employee lawsuits. To schedule a consultation with one of our Austin employment attorneys, please call our office today at (512) 881‐7500.