Michael a. faraone

Michael A. Faraone, P.C., is now accepting plaintiff’s employment cases. Thank you for contacting our office regarding a possible employment lawsuit. Please be assured that we will do everything in our power to quickly and professionally evaluate your claim.

 To assist us in this process, we ask that you:

 1.     Complete the attached questionnaire;

2.     Assemble the documents identified in your questionnaire;

 3.     Obtain a copy of your personnel file from your employer/ex-employer by submitting the completed enclosed release form.  Your employer is obligated to provide your personnel file under the Bullard-Plawecki Right to Know Act.  Simply submit the enclosed form to your employer and they will provide you with your file.  Note:  your employer has the right to charge you for copying costs.

4.     Prepare a chronology of events leading up to and following your discharge, harassment or discrimination.

 The chronology of events should be in the following form:

(EXAMPLE)

1/1/90          Hired

1/1/91          Received excellent evaluation

 2/3/91          Refused to alter payroll records or refused sexual advances or supervisor made racist remarks, etc.

 3/1/93          Terminated with no warning

You should provide as much detail as possible in your chronology.

Once you have completed these tasks, please forward the questionnaire, documents and your personnel file to our office at your earliest convenience.  If you do not receive your personnel file within two (2) weeks, simply submit your materials to us without the personnel file.  Remember, submit only copies of your documents because we shred all such documents if we do not accept your case.

If based on our review, we believe we can successfully prosecute a lawsuit against your former employer, we will meet to discuss the particulars.

We wish to emphasize that it is extremely important that you provide all of the material that you can because we cannot give you good advice without it.  Also, make sure you provide the requested information regarding witnesses.  The sooner you provide us with the requested materials, the sooner we can give you an opinion about your case.

 We look forward to reviewing your materials.  At the conclusion of our review, we will either contact you by telephone or in writing to let you know whether or not we should go further with an office interview.  Please allow our office approximately two (2) weeks to review and respond to your information from the date that it is received back at our office.

 Please print or copy/paste this form, complete it in a thorough manner, and email to: attorneyfaraone@faraonelegal.com. In the subject line simply type “Employment Case.” We will contact you shortly. Thank you.

THE PDF

WILL I TAKE YOUR CASE ON A CONTINGENT FEE BASIS?

 I.         DISCHARGE CASES

            Employment cases are difficult and time consuming.  It is difficult to predict with any degree of certainty whether your case will be successful until the case is well underway.

            If we are successful, your former employer may appeal.  Even if the appeal is unsuccessful, the appeal delays for years the compensation that both of us expect from a positive jury verdict.

            If we lose, either because the judge dismisses the case or because the jury does not agree with our position, my firm will receive no compensation for its efforts.  We as lawyers would not be in practice very long if we did not choose our cases carefully.

            Therefore, before we agree to assume the risk of taking your case on contingency, we must be satisfied that (a) there is a good probability of prevailing;  and (b) the amount that we ultimately may recover is sufficient to cover our costs and give us a fair return for the time we spend on a case.

            We determine whether your case has a good probability of success by interviewing you, any potential witnesses, examining relevant documents and conducting any necessary legal research.  If we believe there is a good chance for success, we also must be sure that a lawsuit, even if successful, provides enough compensation to satisfy both you and our firm.

            To ascertain the potential recovery in your case, we first look at economic damages.  Economic damages are the loss in compensation that you have incurred to date as a result of your termination and what loss of compensation you are likely to suffer in the future.

            Loss of compensation to date is easy to compute.  You simply determine what you would have earned to date had you remained employed and subtract anything that you have made in the interim.  

            Future lost compensation is more difficult to compute, particularly if you are unemployed at the time that you consult our office.  If you have found another job since your termination, your future lost compensation will be your salary at your old employment less what you are earning presently multiplied over the number of years that there will be such a disparity.  For instance, if you were earning $50,000.00 at your previous employment and now are making $40,000.00 and have five years until retirement, your future damages would be $10,000.00 x 5 years or $50,000.00.

            Future lost compensation is difficult to calculate when you have not yet found a job.  That is because you could find a job making more, the same, or less than you made at your last job.  The best we can do in ascertaining your future lost compensation is to make projections based on the labor market and your skills.

            It is my experience that unless you can demonstrate a loss of compensation (both past and future) of at least $30,000.00, I can not recover for you an amount sufficient to satisfy you or cover the costs and expenses of this firm.  For instance, if you were terminated from a job that paid $7.00 per hour, you could probably find another job fairly quickly that pays $7.00 because there are many such jobs available.  In that case we would probably be unable to represent you because the amount of money that we could recover for you would be insufficient to justify a lawsuit.

            There are exceptions to this rule, particularly where your ex-employer acted in an outrageous fashion.  This occurs generally in sex harassment or racial discrimination cases.  In limited circumstances the amount you can expect to recover in these cases will make it worthwhile to proceed even in the absence of large economic damages.  This is because the law provides for the recovery of non-economic damages.  Non-economic damages compensate for the pain and suffering occasioned by a wrongful termination.  However, my experience has shown that these types of non-economic damages are recoverable only when there is significant economic damages.  In any event we are careful to ascertain the potential for both economic and non-economic damages in every case.

            In the event that we are unwilling to represent you, either because we do not believe that we will be successful or because the damages are insufficient to justify a lawsuit, we will tell you so and suggest appropriate alternatives such as filing a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and/or the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, or filing a small claims action.

II.        NON-DISCHARGE CASES

            Generally, I will not take non-discharge cases such as failure to hire, failure to promote or demotion cases.  This is because the potential recovery in these matters are generally insufficient to cover my costs and time in prosecuting the case.

            Similarly, I generally will not take cases where the client has resigned because a resignation bars a lawsuit in most instances.  The one exception is where the employer has made the workplace so miserable that a reasonable employee would feel compelled to resign.

            Of course there are exceptions to these general rules.  Where there is workplace harassment based on race, sex, age, medical condition or other prohibited factors, I am more likely to take a non-discharge case.  However, for financial reasons, I must decline the majority of even these cases.

            I refer most meritorious non-discharge cases to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and/or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

NOTICE TO ALL POTENTIAL CLIENTS

WITH POSSIBLE DISCRIMINATION CLAIMS

There are a number of reasons that it may be preferable for you to file your lawsuit in federal court, rather than Michigan state court, and it is important for you to take the necessary steps to preserve your right to do so.  If your potential case involves some type of discrimination (based on age, race, national origin, gender, disability, religion) or retaliation for having complained about discrimination, you must file a charge of discrimination or retaliation with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) within 300 days of the discriminatory or retaliatory treatment.  In a termination case, the date when you first learned about your termination is the date you should use for counting the 300 days.  Failure to meet this 300-day time limit will mean that you will be barred from bringing your discrimination case in federal court.  The telephone number for the EEOC’s Detroit office is (313) 226-7636.

Once the EEOC has finished its investigation of your case, it will likely issue you a Notice of Right-to-Sue, with a 90 day time limit for getting your case filed in federal court.

Filing a charge with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights will also preserve your right to file a discrimination suit in federal court, but the MDCR will only handle claims involving acts of discrimination or retaliation which have occurred within the last 180 days.

It is also possible that you have agreed to a shorter statute of limitations by signing a statement to that effect.  Such statements sometimes appear on an employment application, and you may not be aware that you have signed one.  You should carefully review your personnel file for any agreements limiting your ability to file a lawsuit in court, and advise us of any such agreements.  If you have not yet obtained your file, you need to make a written request to the company pursuant to Michigan’s Bullard-Plawecki Employee Right-to-Know Act.  (Please ask us for a copy of the pamphlet describing your rights under this act).

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT OUR OFFICE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR MEETING ANY OF THESE DEADLINES UNLESS AND UNTIL WE HAVE AGREED TO REPRESENT YOU AND YOU HAVE SIGNED A RETAINER AGREEMENT WITH US.

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HOW TO CHOOSE AN ATTORNEY

     Finding the right attorney can feel like an impossible task. You are making a significant investment of time, money and trust, and the choice can make the difference between winning or losing. But compared to the purchase of a cars or computer, the consumer of legal services is often operating in the dark with no ‘Consumer Reports’ or similar organization to look to for help. Worse, attorneys know this and some are willing to take advantage of it.

      It does not have to be that way. If you are looking for an appellate attorney in Michigan, you can, for free, visit the website of the Michigan Court of Appeals and Michigan Supreme Court and research any attorney you wish. You can type in their name and see how many cases they have been involved in and whether they ever win. The odds of winning a criminal appeal are never great. But, over time, an experienced attorney should occasionally win.

Here are other signs to look for when choosing an appellate attorney. Does the attorney refuse to discuss the details of your case until he or she has reviewed the record? They should. In the vast majority of appeals, you will be limited to arguing what is already in the record. Without knowing your record, the attorney cannot have an intelligent opinion about your case.

      Is the attorney willing to review the record for a relatively small fee before giving you advice on the likelihood of winning your appeal? That might be a sensible way to do things. Is the attorney honest and considerate with you about the short time frames you have to make these decisions? In Michigan, appeals must proceed within strict deadlines.  

      Here is another open secret in the world of legal marketing. Most of the awards you find on attorney advertising mean nothing. These are not awards granted by neutral organizations based on objective criteria. Rather, the attorney purchased the award from a company that does nothing but sell the right to claim the award.

      That is not true of the Super Lawyers recognition, which is peer reviewed, and it is not true of the Barbara R. Levine Award, which is granted by The Michigan Appellate Defender Commission. Both are noted in the Biography and Awards section of this website. Nor is it true of the information offered on this website, such as the list of cases won by Michael A. Faraone P.C.

           If you think we might be the right attorney for you, feel free to call or email.