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: Charles A. Krugel, Labor & Employment Law, HR Law

Why I Don?t Publicize Specific Client Cases or Disputes

By charlesakrugel

Although I’ve posted general client testimonials, and will continue to post them, I’ve avoided discussing details about specific client cases and disputes.

Besides, the valid and usual reasons of maintaining the confidentiality and credibility of negotiations and dispute resolution, and other evidentiary concerns, there are additional reasons to not get into specifics.

A client’s competitor or adversary may be able to identify a client by recognizing the facts or circumstances described, and they may use this information against my client.

Furthermore, client advocacy involves representing businesses before government agencies like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and other similar federal, state and local agencies.  Plus, a lot of this work involves dealing with difficult employees, their representatives and other third parties.  Many of these third parties can be really difficult to deal with due to a lack of transparency in their conduct and labyrinthian rules which usually leads to seemingly arbitrary, illogical and capricious decisions.  In fact, sometimes a client and I can win or lose a dispute, and we may not even be clear as to why we won or lost.  This recently happened with an Illinois case where the judgment went against my client, but the monetary penalties assessed against my client were reduced by 99%!  We don’t know why, and won’t inquire lest we learn that they made a mathematical mistake.

Consequently, in order for my clients and me to maintain productive relationships with all of these parties, I’ve decided not to publicize in detail about the various disputes that we get into.   This way, I don’t risk vindictiveness against my clients due to exposure to their competitors, public embarrassment, vilification and the loss of bureaucratic anonymity.

In business, vindictiveness by third parties, including government agencies, employee side attorneys and unions, is crucial to avoid.  Some may argue that government personnel and other parties such as union representatives won’t be vindictive towards  clients who are small to medium sized businesses, or to solo practitioners like me.  Agencies and other parties won’t care about us because we’re too small to consider.  This isn’t true.

Even in a huge market such as Chicago, the labor and employment law community is relatively small and people get to know one another.  Maintaining a good reputation is crucial for effective client representation.  Consequently, even though I may aggressively, even zealously, pursue my client’s interests, and clients are willing to publicly testify to my ability to successfully represent them, I’m extremely careful as to how I discuss client matters on a public website.  I don’t want to represent a client and find out that my discussing of their case or dispute was detrimental to them.

On the other hand, when giving public seminars and workshops, I’m very candid about my dealings with these agencies and other attorneys.  Although I’m very careful about naming names, or divulging any identifying information, in some instances, I’ve been known to be openly critical of certain identified organizations.  If you’d like to find out how candid I’ve been, feel free to attend one of my seminars or contact me directly.

Of course, as I become more omnipotent and dominant in my field, I may change my position and use all of the information in my possession to crush everyone!  Kind of a Dwight Schrute thing I have going on!

Full post as published by Charles A. Krugel, Labor & Employment Law, HR Law on December 27, 2009 (boomark / email).