When Do You Need a Labor Lawyer?

Employment and labor issues are complex enough when the law isn’t involved, but when there are disputes that can’t be resolved without legal intervention, they get exponentially harder to manage. Many employers wonder when they should retain advice about their approach to legal issues with employees, especially if they are new to operating in Canada. The truth is, you should look into keeping a legal contact on hand even if you’re not currently facing labor issues. While you might not want to put out a retainer and avail yourself of regular advice, developing the contacts you need will make it easier for you to reach out and get advice from dedicated professionals like the lawyers at Pak Smith Law who only handle employment and labor cases.

Workplace Policy Vetting

Labor laws are constantly changing, and many employers do not have the resources for in-house counsel. When you keep in contact with lawyers whose experience and focus is labor law, you can more easily access the vetting you need to ensure you have kept your workplace policies in compliance with any changes to local or national labor laws. It’s less expensive to get advice up front than it is to litigate later, and keeping your lawyer aware of your workplace policies can help to distance the company’s actions from individual actors within it if there is an issue.

Negotiations in Your Interest

Many clients facing labor issues prefer to negotiate a settlement, but a good settlement is one that minimizes the expense while closing the issue so all parties can move on, one that also preserves your long-term interests. To get those settlements, you need to be prepared to follow through with the full legal process. Choosing your negotiator effectively means finding the lawyer you trust to pursue what you want with the commitment to doing what is needed to protect you, so the other side knows there will be follow-through. Without that firmness in the delivery of the options for settlement, it’s easy for a good negotiator to see how to steer things, but with that commitment, you know you have a team that will push to protect the boundaries around your needs for a resolution. That’s a hard balance to find, but if you can find it, a good one.

Start Research Early

If you have employees, you have a need for advice about your compliance with employment law. If you haven’t found the people you want to work with when you have questions, you need to start looking before a dispute shows itself.