Employee Dispute Resolution

At Michael F. Yates & Company Inc., we design alternative dispute resolution programs that resolve employee disputes internally and prevent costly and time-consuming jury trials; while enhancing relations with employees. This is especially beneficial since the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the American with Disabilities Act expressly provide for jury trials in race, sex, and disability discrimination suits.

Imagine walking into your office one morning and being served with a subpoena to appear in court. The plaintiff is one of your employees.

It happens to hundreds of CEOs and business-owners every day. But thanks to a relatively new option called alternative dispute resolution (ADR), many companies are savings hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by solving employee relations problems before they can escalate into expensive and time-consuming court battles.

Workplace litigation costs, such as attorney's fees, damages, court fees, and settlement costs, have increased dramatically over the past five years, according to a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.

This is because employees across the nation are filing a soaring number of lawsuits alleging sexual harassment as well as discrimination based on age, race, religion and national origin.

In fact, over 80,000 discrimination charges were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year. Sexual harassment cases are filed at the rate of over 15,000 a year, or approximately 60 every working day.

Six-figure awards are typical in cases of sexual and racial discrimination, and this does not include legal expenses and such related litigation costs as the amount of time managers had to spend defending these claims.

We can help to mitigate losses and if our services are in place early enough prevent these situations altogether.