"Cross-examination is the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth." So wrote John Henry Wigmore, legendary judge and legal scholar. However, when a college student is faced with a disciplinary proceeding, cross examination has not been required...
Good Judgment. Wise Counsel. Aggressive Representation.
Year: 2017
Can your employment agreement require individual arbitration?
Found in the fine print of a contract that you probably signed shortly before you started work or on your first day, could be an arbitration clause. These have recently proliferated. In the employment context, collective actions have long allowed you and co-workers to...
A minor but potentially serious change in the way that the courts have interpreted the First Amendment limits on church and state
On September 6, 2017, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc (the full court -- not just a three judge panel) ruled that a Michigan county commission could start meetings with Christian invocations. This is a minor but potentially serious change in the...
How to keep a false accusation from ruining a career
In the world of Google, all it takes is one false accusation to ruin a healthcare professional’s career. An investigation by a licensing board, for example the Michigan Board of nursing, is also more likely to show up online. You can take every effort to avoid...
Ageism in the workplace
Many longtime workers claim that they are being targeted for layoffs because of their age or health status, but federal law is often of little help. We pursue age discrimination lawsuits in Michigan and Ohio and we use both federal and state laws as tools. The article...
Why haven’t Congress and state legislatures moved to protect Gays and Lesbians?
It may surprise many of our readers but, astonishingly, it is still legal to fire someone because he is gay in much of the United States -- including Ohio and Michigan. A federal appeals court in Chicago recently interpreted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to state that...
Traffic cameras given green light by Ohio Supreme Court
Automatic tickets are cost effective for communities but feel Big Brother-ish to drivers. I first encountered them in Arizona almost ten years ago, which I found odd as I associate the West with more individual freedom and mistrust of government. The legal issue...
Depression, anxiety, PTSD: Discrimination based on mental illness
Even though one in five Americans struggle with mental health issues each year, negative stereotypes persist and those who struggle receive little compassion. Many people hide these struggles from employers. The response of one employer to a request for mental health...
NachtLaw wins Disability Discrimination Case in the Michigan Supreme Court
Bettina Winkler was a middle schooler who was denied admission to Notre Dame Prep, a private Catholic high school in Pontiac, Michigan. She was the only student who had attended their middle school denied admission to the high school. Administrators allegedly told...
A lawyer should negotiate or review your severance package offer
It is no longer a world in which a person starts working at a company in his or her 20s with an expectation of working there until retirement. It is more likely nowadays for a person to have several employers throughout his or her career. However, sometimes the...