Do I have a case that you would handle?

Each day, someone at our law firm fields “intake” calls from prospective clients.  Generally that person is a paralegal or legal assistant who has been trained to ask certain questions in order to determine who should come in for a lengthy consolation and who shouldn’t. Most of the time, I can tell you in 5 minutes whether you have a possible claim that a lawyer might handle. The most important question is why do you think something is illegal about your workplace or an “adverse action” such  as firing or getting demoted.  Regardless of the type of claim, a person must have something happen that adversely affects their employment as without damages of some kind, you normally would not have an action that we would pursue.  A lot of people think that emotional pain and suffering is enough but typically but unless there is some actual loss of money, the emotional pain alone generally is not enough to spend the time and money pursuing an action,

What about discrimination claims? 

These are generally hard to prove as the burden is upon you to prove discrimination and most people don’t have either enough information or documentation to prove this type of claim. You cannot bring an action in court unless you have exhausted your administrative remedies? That is, you must file a claim at the EEOC, the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights or another Fair Employment Practices agency that has a work sharing agreement with the EEOC.