Can An Attorney Help Me Negotiate A Higher Severance Agreement In Manhattan?

Your leverage in negotiations over severance pay depends on the strength of your underlying claims.

If you have underlying, viable claims against your employer for breach of employment contract, wage-and-hour violations, discriminatory discharge, retaliatory discharge, sexual harassment, or other unlawful workplace harassment, you can, and should, make that known to the employer. These causes of action give you leverage in severance negotiations to bargain for a substantial monetary settlement. The more likely your claims are to succeed and the greater the money damages to which you may be entitled, the more leverage you have to negotiate for severance pay.

On the other hand, if you have no underlying, viable claims against your company for breach of the employment agreement, wage-and-hour violations, discriminatory discharge, retaliatory termination, or sexual harassment, or other unlawful harassment at work, you have no leverage to negotiate over severance pay.

There are cases in which, by merely writing a detailed demand letter to the employer and then negotiating with the company, I’ve obtained substantial money recoveries on behalf of executives or professionals who have been fired.

However, in most cases, the minimum that’s necessary to negotiate a severance package greater than any that the employer may have offered is to draft a complaint setting forth the executive’s or professional’s allegations and claims and to send it to the employer with a short letter. The letter states that, unless the employer contacts my law firm within X days to undertake to resolve this dispute, we will file, in court, the accompanying Complaint and prosecute the employee’s claims.

There is no general right to be paid severance in Manhattan unless you have an employment contract guaranteeing you a certain number of weeks, months, or years of severance upon termination, or the employer has a policy in writing to pay severance.

If you are an executive or a professional in Manhattan or the surrounding the borough of Manhattan metro area and you believe you have been wrongfully terminated, call the borough of Manhattan Wrongful Termination Attorney David S. Rich at (347) 941-0760 today.