Employment Lawyers in Calgary, AB Doing Everything Necessary to Protect Your Rights
Getz Collins and Associates services Alberta with employment lawyers trained in employment law and labour knowledge. They are willing to advise on various legal services such as wrongful dismissal, constructive dismissal, and drafting employment agreements. While searching for the best employment lawyers, you want to be sure you receive sound advice from a legal team that will effectively settle your employment matters. Protect your employee rights, legal rights, and yourself from bogus employment contracts, false allegations, workplace harassment, and improper termination notice. Look no further than the law firm of Getz Collins and Associates’ employment law team, a group of experienced employment lawyers with the legal know-how to navigate labour litigation and negotiation in all your employment-related matters.
Our Calgary Employment Lawyers Are Here to Help
We have employment lawyers in Calgary who are standing by at our nationally recognized firm for all your legal needs. From general litigation and wrongful dismissals to punitive damages, if you’re here to seek legal advice, you’ve come to the right labour lawyers.
How Can Our Employment Lawyers Help You?
Typically, employment lawyers mediate or contend issues with an employer on behalf of the employee as an acting ambassador for their rights. Most commonly, these disputes arise over a termination. An employee may have any number of disagreements with their own termination, and an employment lawyer discusses with each party to review that separation in search of:
- Human rights violations committed by the employer
- Whether or not the employer terminated the employee with due cause
- Possible misinterpretations of the employer/employee contract that could have resulted in the employer’s dissatisfaction and termination of the employee
- Human rights violations that the employer may have committed in the termination of their client
An employment lawyer serves the purpose of both a barrister (litigating matters in court) and a solicitor (drafting or reviewing paperwork, making employment contracts, etc.), which is unique in the field of law. Typically, a lawyer only performs one of those jobs. An employment law firm or an individual employment lawyer practicing at a general firm may work for either the employee or the employer, depending on who hired them. A large company may even have employment lawyers on retainer.
If an employee is not unionized, they can hire any employment lawyer they want. If they are in a union, the employee is part of a collective agreement between their union and employer stating that their representation solely comes from the union. Outside of union benefits, non-unionized employees will be responsible for hiring and paying for their own legal fees.
What Tasks Do Employment Lawyers Perform When Assisting or Representing Employees?
When hired by an employee with a grievance against their current or former workplace, it is the responsibility of the employment lawyer to work diligently to understand and best represent the situation from the employee’s perspective. To do so, an employment lawyer may perform any or all of the following tasks, depending on the particular situation’s needs:
- Host an initial consultation visit with the employee wishing to file a grievance or litigation.
- Meet with recently dismissed employees to see if more litigation is needed
- Draft a letter to the former employer seeking a more beneficial severance package for the released employee
- Review contracts, specifically the termination clause, for misrepresentation or errors
- Consult on any executive employment agreement proposed by a company
- Attend court, tribunals, or other litigation matters with or on behalf of their client
- Attend evidence discoveries
- Attend workplace investigation meetings
- Draft letters explaining the employee’s side of the story; if the employee was accused of workplace harassment
- Attend dispute mediation meetings
- Draw up a Statement of Claim to launch a lawsuit concerning wrongful dismissal, if necessary
- Launch class-action lawsuits based on wage agreements on behalf of all employees at a single employer
- Represent a client against the Ministry of Labour if there is a case of unpaid labour
What Tasks Do Employment Lawyers Perform When Assisting or Representing Employers?
Be they a regular or retained employee of the company or a lawyer that the company has hired to help mediate an issue, the life of an employment lawyer working on behalf of the employer can look quite different from one on the employee’s side. As mentioned above, the most common complaint is dealing with a previous employee’s termination of employment. Employment lawyers working on behalf of employers will typically draw up an employment contract or policies, negotiate severance for terminated employees, and defend the employer from litigation levied against them.
A typical day in the life of the employment lawyer representing an employer may include, but is not limited to, the following:
- Defending a wrongful dismissal lawsuit by drafting a Statement of Defense
- Defending wage class actions
- Acting as an investigator within the workplace
- Drafting any of the below:
- Executive employment agreements
- Equity agreements
- Employment contract changes or new copy
- Termination clauses
- Harassment, discrimination, health and safety, and workplace violence policies
- Attending mediation on behalf of the employer to settle disputes
- Ensuring the client employer is working in compliance with employment standards
- Acting on behalf of the employer in court or a litigation tribunal
- Attending evidence discoveries opposite the employee’s lawyer
- Prosecuting those employees who breach restrictive covenants, such as non-competition and non-solicitation agreements
- Performing due diligence in mergers and acquisitions
Understanding How Employment Law Helps You
Hiring someone to help you with your employment law needs can seem like an expensive option while under workplace investigations, after employment termination, or during employment disputes. However, an experienced employment lawyer can go a long way in making sure your occupational health remains, you always have reasonable notice before layoff or terminations, and your wages are protected and maintained. In this way, an employment lawyer is an asset that has saved millions of people money by advising employers, updating workplace policies, and smoothing labour relations.