There’s nothing like face-to-face contact and on-site experience to help me better understand a client’s concerns and needs.  Moreover, most business owners and operators (maybe even all owners and operators) love to showoff their business.

It was during my tenure in labor and employee relations for the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) that I started visiting worksites as part of my job.  I noticed that many CPS principals and administrators would complain about how many of the central office employees made decisions directly impacting their schools without any regard for them.  In other words, they complained about the same thing many employees complain about, top down management with little effort to understand their jobs or obtain their buy in concerning workplace initiatives.

Plus, when dealing with multiple union and employee grievances, or employee conduct issues, from a single school or location, it was unproductive to drag the parties to my office for hours of grievance hearings, meetings and travel when I could just as easily take the hearings and meetings to the schools, save everyone a lot of time and money, and learn much more about the issues at hand.

I carried this practice over to other salaried jobs that I held and found my colleagues equally appreciative and welcome.  Later, when I started my own law practice, I decided that I would continue holding as many meetings as possible at the client’s site to make it easier on them and improve my understanding of their concerns.

This doesn’t work for all clients and situations though.  In order to facilitate openness and directness during negotiations or other proceedings, sometimes the parties must meet off-site or at a neutral location.

Topics to be covered include:

• The importance of human resources and good management
• When to use employment agreements
• What is and is not appropriate to ask job candidates
• Employee screening and risk assessment
• Unemployment compensation
• Federal & state laws likely to be encountered by businesses
• Sample documentation for employee records

Does your company manufacture, distribute, or sell products and/or services by utilizing a sales force?

Are you a sales professional, selling for a company on either a base salary plus commission basis or as an independent contractor?

Not sure what terms you should be negotiating in your sales representative agreements?

Concerned that your agreement is not comprehensive enough in case there is a dispute?

January’s seminar at Saper Law focuses on the topic of Sales Representative Agreements. Daliah Saper, Principal Attorney at Saper Law, will lead the presentation using case studies and sample contracts. Her discussion will address payment and commission structures, non-compete and confidentiality agreements, territorial and geographical boundaries, intellectual property ownership, as well as the Illinois Sales Representative Act.

January’s seminar at Saper Law is a must-attend for any company or individual involved in sales. Sign up today before space runs out!

Details:
Thursday January 28, 2010
Saper Law Offices, LLC
500 N. Dearborn, Suite 1200
Chicago, IL 60654
Time: 11:30 am – 1:30 pm
Cost $15 with online registration: http://salesrep.eventbrite.com
$25 at the door
$5.00 to watch the live webcast
Lunch will be provided

Besides, the valid and usual reasons of maintaining the confidentiality and credibility of negotiations and dispute resolution, and other evidentiary concerns, there are additional reasons to not get into specifics.

A client’s competitor or adversary may be able to identify a client by recognizing the facts or circumstances described, and they may use this information against my client.

Furthermore, client advocacy involves representing businesses before government agencies like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and other similar federal, state and local agencies.  Plus, a lot of this work involves dealing with difficult employees, their representatives and other third parties.  Many of these third parties can be really difficult to deal with due to a lack of transparency in their conduct and labyrinthian rules which usually leads to seemingly arbitrary, illogical and capricious decisions.  In fact, sometimes a client and I can win or lose a dispute, and we may not even be clear as to why we won or lost.  This recently happened with an Illinois case where the judgment went against my client, but the monetary penalties assessed against my client were reduced by 99%!  We don’t know why, and won’t inquire lest we learn that they made a mathematical mistake.

Consequently, in order for my clients and me to maintain productive relationships with all of these parties, I’ve decided not to publicize in detail about the various disputes that we get into.   This way, I don’t risk vindictiveness against my clients due to exposure to their competitors, public embarrassment, vilification and the loss of bureaucratic anonymity.

In business, vindictiveness by third parties, including government agencies, employee side attorneys and unions, is crucial to avoid.  Some may argue that government personnel and other parties such as union representatives won’t be vindictive towards  clients who are small to medium sized businesses, or to solo practitioners like me.  Agencies and other parties won’t care about us because we’re too small to consider.  This isn’t true.

Even in a huge market such as Chicago, the labor and employment law community is relatively small and people get to know one another.  Maintaining a good reputation is crucial for effective client representation.  Consequently, even though I may aggressively, even zealously, pursue my client’s interests, and clients are willing to publicly testify to my ability to successfully represent them, I’m extremely careful as to how I discuss client matters on a public website.  I don’t want to represent a client and find out that my discussing of their case or dispute was detrimental to them.

On the other hand, when giving public seminars and workshops, I’m very candid about my dealings with these agencies and other attorneys.  Although I’m very careful about naming names, or divulging any identifying information, in some instances, I’ve been known to be openly critical of certain identified organizations.  If you’d like to find out how candid I’ve been, feel free to attend one of my seminars or contact me directly.

Of course, as I become more omnipotent and dominant in my field, I may change my position and use all of the information in my possession to crush everyone!  Kind of a Dwight Schrute thing I have going on!