Business First, Law Second FAQ
What do you mean, “Business First, Law Second”?
Any law firm can tell you what the law says. But what the law means for you depends on what your company’s goals are. We keep an eye on the big picture by learning about your business goals first.
Give me an example of what you mean.
Recently, one of our clients — a bank — asked us whether jury-duty leave counts toward the 40-hours-a-week limit that triggers overtime. Any employment lawyer can tell you what the law says. (It doesn’t count toward the 40 hours.) But we asked our client what they wanted to do. They told us that they didn’t want employees who had jury duty to lose out on their usual overtime pay. We said, fine: count the jury-duty time toward the 40 hours, even though you don’t have to. Finding out what our client wanted changed the nature of our advice.
So the law is less important?
No. But we believe that to be your trusted advisor, we need to understand the business context of the problem before giving you employment-law advice.
How do you learn about your clients’ goals?
Many of our clients have been with us for years. We keep in touch with them so we know what’s going on with their businesses. With new clients, we start by listening — about their business and about what they want to accomplish.
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