San Francisco, CA (February 23, 2009) -- Despite talk in Washington of how the recently passed stimulus bill will cultivate jobs, LegalMatch, an online attorney/client matching service, reported an unprecedented rise in employment-related cases posted since September 1, 2007 (when comparing data with the prior seventeen months).
LegalMatch has seen wrongful termination cases and employment discrimination issues each rise a sharp 39 and 43 percent, respectively. Also showing a marked jump are wage and overtime disputes at 30 percent, and pension and benefits at disputes bumping up 21 percent.
The January 2009 numbers for employment discrimination, wage and overtime disputes, and wrongful termination cases were the highest of any month on record.
The financial services crash has lead businesses to slash jobs and search for more cost-saving measures. LegalMatch has seen an increase in cases posted that coincides with the National Bureau of Economic Report's recent announcement that the United States has been in a recession since December 2007.
Insiders speculate the sharp rise in employee-related LegalMatch cases may be attributed to a reluctance to incur legal fees and opting out of seeking legal advice regarding their employees. However, experts red flag this approach. "In an era where consumer information is robust, now is not the time to underestimate an employee's knowledge of their rights," says Anna Ostrovsky, chairperson and general counsel for LegalMatch.
One San Francisco human resources consultant who represents start-up companies has noticed that since the crisis began, more companies have been "cleaning house" under the pretext of layoffs and occasionally misclassifying employees to avoid wage, overtime and benefits costs.
Jason T. Brown, managing partner at Blau, Brown & Leonard, LLC, says his firm is also seeing more cases. "In an economic downturn, employees are likely to consult with an attorney regarding their rights, and a sharp firm will examine the prospect of litigation from a very broad prism." Brown also says that he and his firm field individual employee charges, and oftentimes they don't seem actionable. But upon further scrutiny, he finds that the employees have been exploited under a section of the labor code such as the FLSA or their States Wage & Hour code and that issue is ripe to handle as a class action.
"Employees in California are just as educated as employers. If they are being misclassified, they know it. Employors are often in denial until they get hit with a claim," says Vikita Poindexter, SPHR, an independent human resources director and owner of Poindexter Consulting Group in Temecula. Poindexter reports that her business, which focuses on compliance and mediation for small and mid-sized businesses, has also spiked.
LegalMatch will continue to monitor these cases as the situation continues, and report regularly to their website at www.legalmatch.com.
LegalMatch (www.LegalMatch.com) is an online legal matching service that makes it easy to find a lawyer. Headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Los Angeles and Austin, LegalMatch helps attorneys nationwide build and grow their law practice. LegalMatch pioneered the online legal matching industry in 1999; the service is free to consumers and available in all fifty states. For more information on LegalMatch, contact Chris Russell-Karazin at (951) 203-1313.