A complaint lands on your desk. Harassment, discrimination, retaliation, it doesn't matter which. Your first instinct is to get answers fast. But if you skip a few key steps before you start asking questions, you could lose the one protection that keeps your investigation notes, interview summaries, and internal findings out of a plaintiff's hands later. That protection is attorney-client privilege, and it does not attach automatically just because a lawyer is somewhere in th

Failure to accommodate claims under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act are unusually punishing for employers because the law creates two separate ways to lose. An employer can be liable for failing to provide a reasonable accommodation, and separately liable for failing to engage in the interactive process at all, even if it turns out no accommodation was actually possible. Employers who mean well but move too slowly, ask the wrong questions, or cut the conversation