Our Blog: Executive Counseling

Why you should actually read your employment agreement before you sign!

We recently had an employment agreement related issue arise here at the firm that reminded me how unequal the bargaining power can be in employment relationships. A very large Bank here in Chicago slipped into an equity incentive agreement-a provision which altered the statute of limitations for our …

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Notes for Employees Who Have Been Notified that They’re Being Fired

In my last post I talked about getting the time off work you need for treatment and to care for yourself when faced with a serious illness. Now let’s look at maintaining your income while seeking treatment and/or recovering.

First, this article addresses conditions that are unrelated to work. If your injury or illness resulted at work …

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The Vanishing Earned Bonus: Part II

Just wanted to post a quick update to our ongoing blog series addressing the ways in which employers and courts have been eating away at earned bonuses by reliance on language providing employers with absolute discretion in awarding incentive compensation.

Yesterday, in McCleary v. Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, 2015 Ill. App. (1st) 141287-U (Ill. App. 1st Dist. …

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A number of years ago, we published a blog setting out several tools employers have used to deny employees what we believe are earned bonuses as well as some ideas about legal principles on which an employee might rely to get those bonuses back.  For that complete blog post, scroll to the bottom of this page.  Now more than five years later, …

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Employment Noncompete Agreement Act under Consideration in the Illinois General Assembly

Non-compete agreements are mechanisms used by employers to limit an employee’s ability to work for a competitor for a period of time after the employment relationship terminates.  Employees typically sign these agreements as a condition of hire.  Employers are increasingly relying on non-competes to protect any competitive advantage they may …

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Voluntary Classification Settlement Program Aims to Resolve Employee Misclassification as Independent Contractors

The IRS has recently implemented a program called the “Voluntary Classification Settlement Program” (“VCSP”).  The program allows eligible employers to pay a small sum in order to obtain partial relief from federal employment taxes for previous mis-characterizations of workers as “independent contractors” when such individuals should have received classification …

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The Vanishing Earned Bonus [Part I] – And How to Get it Back!

Every year, around this time we start to get calls from employees who have not only lost their jobs but have also been denied their year-end bonus, which so many families depend on in budgeting their lives.  Employers use all kinds of tricks to withhold what employees rightly feel …

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