Finding the Best Lawyer for Workplace Sexual Harassment
By Space Coast Daily // June 25, 2020
Sexual harassment until now is a common incident women face in the workplace and all around their way. That is dangerous for both physical and mental health, the victim struggles to find the strength to come back to normal life.
That’s why it is very necessary to be cautious and know information about finding the best lawyer for sexual harassment.
Let’s be a little bit clear of what sexual harassment actually is. Any unwelcome sexual advances or any forceful asexual act both verbally or physically will be considered as sexual harassment.
To put it more vividly, I’m providing the example of California. According to California law, one is a sexual harassment victim if the person:
• Faces any uninvited sexual advances
• Is requested for any sexual favors
• Any unasked sexual physical contact
• Faces any visual or verbal obscene sexual approach
• Offensive comment that can be termed with unwanted sexual comments.
If you want to sue anyone for sexual harassment, usually it requires the assistance of a lawyer who is quite experienced.
One can file a case for offensive deliberate comments, touching, sexual advances. The experienced lawyers will try their best to maximize the damages by those harassments in order to build a strong case. However, the time to file is actually pretty short.
You should talk to an experienced lawyer right after any unpleasant incident. Or else you might lose the right to file for waiting long.
Before going straight to DFEH you may report to your employer. That way you are letting them know about the incident and if employers are aware of their duty as stated by FEHA and California law, they will try their best to protect or show their duty.
Even if the problem doesn’t end there, there will be an argument and you are getting a strong basement. It won’t appear like you are jumping in any baseless complaint. Also, you can highlight their inability to take the necessary steps.
How a lawyer can help you?
An experienced lawyer will clear some questions for you first before you file anything.
The questions are likely –
• As law defines, can your accused incident be called sexual harassment?
• How should you behave to the accused person?
• Should you report the case?
• What are the steps to protect you for the future?
• How should you react if any of your co-employees want to stop you from filing the case?
See a Lawyer before you report Sexual Harassment
Remember gender or place doesn’t matter when it comes to complaining a file. You can also reach out to a California sexual harassment attorney for free. All you need is the courage to speak out. It may sound like a hassle that being a victim you need to go through some steps before filing a case. But these steps are necessary anyway. You can consult for free about your incidents with your lawyer. The probable steps are:
You may need to report the possible incident to managerial employees or human resources to show the employer responsible for the unpleasant act. But the case might be different if the harasser is a manager. You can report to – Supervisor, Anti-discrimination board, or other grievance handlers.
• The lawyer will figure out for you the employee to whom you can report the incident in question.
• Take help of the lawyer when you are outlining the description of the incident
• If you are nervous about outlining, take direct help from HR about the fact, that you will be able to put in the relevant information.
• An attorney can provide you the steps relying on which you can take actions.
The steps can be:
• Making the document of the harassment
• Helping you to prepare if you face a further unpleasant situation
• Helping in monitoring the employer’s say in the matter and make sure the employer doesn’t bother you in these circumstances.
So the steps are basically:
• Informing a supervisor
• Filing harassment compliant (in collaboration with ‘DFEH’)
• If you have received ‘right to sue’ notice now it’s time to file a civil lawsuit. This lawsuit shall seek monetary damage from the harasser.
Help during investigation
Your employer will not be able to interfere during the investigation process; even it requires personal investigation. Also, your employer will have no chance to create any situation that may affect your work or job negatively. Moreover, the experienced lawyer can take part in the investigation process by checking in.
Can the employer retaliate?
If you have already disagreed with the inappropriate behaviors of the employer, filed a discrimination charge, involved any court proceeding, can the employer retaliate against you?
The answer is a big NO. The employer will be prohibited by the law in terms of retaliating. Remember, retaliating can take different shapes, not only in just papers but also by some actions you can sense the retaliation.
For instance, your employer may willingly exclude you from important meetings, get together, or tasks or projects as you have reported the harassment. Your lawyer can note these actions.
Filing Charges
The lawyer will also put before you the measures you can take to challenge the report( sexual harassment). Furthermore, the lawyer will also show you the pros and cons of the measures you are going to take.
About time
In California before 2020, to report a file of sexual harassment one required to submit within one year. But the time limit changed as the California lawsuit acknowledged the fact that it actually takes courage, time proper support to come out and report.
The victims cannot easily admit about what happened, so it takes time for them to come to terms with the situation and openly talk about it. Some victims even realize it later that’s things weren’t quite right. Also, some victims do not dare to come out in fear of retaliation.
Taking all these facts into consideration the time limit was expanded from 1 year to 3 years. For California court, some facts regarding the time limit are still undecided.
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