How to protect your assets—and people—from costly litigation and poaching in 2020

As we trot forward into 2020, many of my clients are thinking about two very important questions. First, how can they make their businesses more efficient by avoiding employment litigation in state and federal courts? Second, what can they do to ensure retention of top-level employees and prevent competitors from taking their best and brightest talent?

Establishing a clear, direct strategy to counteract these two significant threats can be invaluable in charting a productive course in 2020. Far from being atypical, most employers can benefit from the two straightforward methods of protecting their businesses.

Arbitration agreements and their benefits

Arbitration agreements have been shown to decrease the overall cost of most employment litigation. Arbitration is a dispute resolution mechanism that stands in place of traditional litigation in state and federal courts. Rather than having a judge preside over the dispute—with a jury likely rendering the ultimate decision on liability and the recovery amount—it allows an arbitrator to decide whether the employee has met her burden to establish a recovery, along with the amount of the actual damages.