Day in the Life of an Employment and Labor Lawyer: 20 Tips for an Employment and Labor Lawyer

Day in the Life of an Employment and Labor Lawyer: 20 Tips for an Employment and Labor Lawyer

As explained at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com, employment and labor lawyers may handle any of the wide variety of issues that can arise in employment situations. They represent employers and employees who are involved in various work-related disputes. If you are interested in pursuing this career path and are wondering what a day in the life of an employment and labor lawyer looks like, then this article will have you covered.

There is no typical day

Straight off the bat, we must start by mentioning that, as per RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com, there is no typical day in the employment and labor practice. That is part of what keeps it interesting and stimulating.

Split days

It is also worth noting that most management-side employment and labor lawyers have a mix of litigation and counseling in the practice. Therefore, many of their days are split between helping clients prevent litigation and defending clients against claims that are brought.

You will likely not be going to the courtroom

As an employment and labor lawyer, you will find that, on your day-to-day, you are not going to be in the courtroom, but will be working with federal agencies, like the EEOC, which protects employees’ rights from discrimination and Title 7, or OSHA which does worker safety according to RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com.

Instances when you can end up in court

Working with the agencies mentioned in the previous point is a large part of what an employment and labor lawyer does. You will be helping them find the facts that they need to properly investigate what has gone wrong with your client’s employment relationship. However, if all that breaks down, then you may potentially end up going to court.

Emails

As is the case for most lawyers, employment and labor lawyers tend to start their day in the office by reading emails that may have come in overnight. This involves reading and responding to any late night/early morning emails from partners about ongoing case strategies or issues.

Going through court filings

If there are any court filings due or discovery that need to be served, early in the morning is also when you want to look them over one more time before sending them to your assistant to proofread and finalize as articulated at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com. This ensures your assistant has plenty of time to review or fix any issues before 5 pm.

Conference call with the partner and client contact

Part of the morning activities is conference calls with the partner and client contact to discuss a case. The client is there to provide their side of the story and help you establish some of the facts of the case while the partner oversees the big picture strategy and handles the most important tasks in the case, such as taking the plaintiff’s deposition, attending highly contested motion hearings, and managing the client relationship.

What the associate does

As captured at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com, the associate does most of the heavy lifting in a case, like investigating facts, drafting discovery requests and responses, writing discovery conferral letters, and many other tasks.

Follow-up calls

After the initial conference calls, you will also need follow-up calls with the partner to discuss the next steps in the case, including responding to the complaint, initial witness interviews, collecting documents and information from the client, etc.

Keeping the client informed

You will also need to take some time to draft an initial email to the client about the next steps, including a list of documents you need to evaluate the claims, a list of employee witnesses you need to interview, and thoughts on the initial defense strategy based on the conversation with the partner.

Prep sessions

You will also need to let the client know and ask them if you would like to schedule the depositions and prep sessions as covered at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com. Each prep session takes about 3-4 hours and, depending on the importance of the witness to the case, each deposition can take 2-8 hours.

Morning breaks

If you have an ongoing case you are preparing for, then it can be extremely intensive on your time and energy as already mentioned. This is why many employment and labor lawyers take a break in the morning session to recharge and reenergize.

Meet and confer letters

You will also spend some time during the day drafting a letter in response to the opposing counsel’s meet and confer letter. In many jurisdictions, as described at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com, meet and confer letters and phone calls are required before a party can file a motion to compel discovery.

Depositions

If you need to schedule depositions or the opposing counsel wants to depose your witnesses, then this will also take a lot of time from your day, as you will have to discuss the same with your team. You will need to discuss this with the partner.

Serving of subpoenas

The drafting and serving of subpoenas will also take a bit of time from your day. Most firms will have paralegals draft these documents, and they then email the lawyer to review and approve them so that the paralegal can serve them.

Research

As an employment and labor lawyer, you will also spend time researching as discussed at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com. Cases involving employment law are usually very complicated and you will need to take some time to do your research to establish the facts.

Responding to queries from partners

Speaking of research, if you get an email from a partner with an urgent research question, you will need to research the relevant laws and draft an email response to the partner. The email must be professional and free of typos, so the partner can just forward or copy/paste your email into their response.

Reviewing opposing counsels’ responses

You will also need to set aside time to receive and review opposing counsel’s responses to discovery requests and documents that their client produced as outlined at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com. You will need to take notes on issues and deficiencies in the responses, so you can prepare a meet and confer letter to opposing counsel before filing a motion to compel.

Multi-tasking

The job of an employment and labor lawyer requires an incredible amount of multi-tasking, attention to detail, and quick recall of critical and relevant factual and legal issues in each case. You will be doing several things at a go, hence why you need excellent multi-tasking skills.

Taking work home

As an employment and labor lawyer, your day will very rarely end when you leave the office. When you get home, you will likely need to fire up your laptop to continue working on one or two urgent matters.

As always, if you are looking for more information on this and other related topics, then the excellent RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com will have you covered.