We have no doubt you were treated unfairly and poorly. People do not go looking for an employment lawyer because everything is fine. But there is a hard truth in this area of law, and it is better to hear it early than to learn it the slow way: an employer treating you badly is not, by itself, against the law.
Employment law is not built on fairness, decency, or how badly you were treated. It is built on a narrow set of reasons an employer is forbidden to act on.
An employment relationship that calls only for you to perform work and for the employer to pay wages is an employment at will. A person employed at will may be discharged at any time, for any reason or for no reason at all — a good reason, a bad reason, a petty reason, a reason that is flatly wrong on the facts — unless an exception to that rule applies.
There is no law against a bad boss. There is a law against certain motives.
An at-will discharge is unlawful when it violates one of these.
A written contract for a term, a collective bargaining agreement, or a policy or handbook that promised something the employer then did not honor. Most employees do not have one. Some do and never realized it.
The law will not let an employer fire you for refusing to break the law on its behalf, or for exercising a right the law protects — filing a workers' compensation claim is the most common example. New Mexico and Texas each recognize a version of this exception, and each defines it narrowly.
The largest category, and the source of most cases. Federal and state statutes make it illegal to fire, demote, or punish an employee because of a protected characteristic — race, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy, religion, age, disability or serious medical condition, and others — or in retaliation for protected activity: complaining about discrimination or harassment, reporting conduct you reasonably believe is unlawful, requesting an accommodation, taking protected medical leave, or taking part in an investigation.
Retaliation is the one people underestimate. You do not have to be right that the underlying conduct was illegal. What matters is that you raised it, and what the employer did next.
Lawyers decline matters for many reasons that have nothing to do with the strength of a claim — caseload, timing, where the employer is located, a conflict, or the type of claim.
A declination is not a ruling that you have no case, and it is not legal advice that you lack one. If you receive one from this office, it means we will not be representing you, and nothing more.
Consult another attorney promptly. Deadlines keep running either way.
Three things, together:
One or two of these is a grievance. All three is a case worth looking at.
Any of these can become part of a case when it sits alongside the three ingredients above. On their own, they usually are not one. This page is general information, not an opinion about your situation.
Under the at-will rule, generally yes. The question is never whether the employer had a good reason — it is whether the real reason was one the law forbids.
Not by itself. But a reason that is demonstrably false, or that changes over time, is often how an unlawful motive is proven. It matters as evidence, not as a violation on its own.
Sometimes. A handbook or policy that makes specific promises about discipline or discharge can create an implied agreement, depending on its language and on state law. Most handbooks are written to avoid that.
Timing is one of the most important facts in a retaliation case. A short gap between a protected complaint and an adverse action is evidence — not proof, but evidence.
That can still count. It is called constructive discharge, and it is treated as a firing when the conditions were severe enough that a reasonable person would have felt forced to leave.
Employment claims carry strict filing deadlines, and some of the important ones are measured in months, not years. They run whether or not a lawyer is involved. If you think your situation is one of the exceptions, tell us what happened — free, confidential, and no obligation.