My friends,
This column is my final contribution to the Informed Employer as I look forward to retirement at the end of the year after 43 years with Ice Miller. This is an appropriate occasion to provide a few nuggets of advice and predictions for the future.
1. I'll start with how to use your employment counsel and legal fees (the latter is often the elephant in the room). One prediction I can make with 100-percent certainty is that hourly legal rates will not go down. So, you need to be a smart legal consumer. One way to do that is to ensure that your employment counsel is positioned to provide you with efficient, effective, and targeted advice. That means making sure that your counsel has a solid understanding of your culture and your objectives before providing advice to you. Invite them to your workplace and let them spend a few hours there, meeting people and seeing how things work. This is an investment your counsel should be willing to make at no charge. It's an invaluable experience and allows us to better advise you. On the subject of legal fees, many clients over the years worked with me on a monthly retainer basis. Financially and otherwise, they came out better than if they had paid my hourly rate. Plus, the advantages are many: a more predictable legal budget; the ability to call for advice without being charged for every single conversation; and allowing your counsel to assist your HR team to become more effective in handling employment issues. I encourage...
The Archdiocese of Malta on Monday categorically rejects the false and misleading claims published by The Shift News in an article titled 'Anger within Curia over costly conversion of ODZ farmhous...