Date: December 18, 2023
TELG's Anita Mazumdar Chambers spoke with Employee to Lawyer, an employment law podcast hosted by the Illinois chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association. Ms. Chambers spoke with hosts Amit Bindra and Max Barack on topics such as The Employment Law Group's law practice, qui tam law, how to find local counsel, and what makes a case more likely to go to trial.
Quoteworthy:
"I feel like no one's a perfect employee, right? We all have our flaws or weaknesses in the workplace, but those people deserve protection too. It is just something we are always trying to push against: the standards in the case law. They shouldn't have to be this picture perfect plaintiff."
Anita Mazumdar Chambers
[EXCERPT]
Employee to Lawyer Episode: Qui Tam/Federal Employment Law
(Excerpts transcribed and edited lightly by The Employment Law Group)
[EXCERPT STARTING AT 11:38]
Host Amit Bindra: Your cases are in a bunch of different states, maybe up to 50. How do you manage finding the right local counsel and that whole process? A lot of trust has to go into finding who you’re going to work with when you’re in Alaska or Hawaii or wherever.
Anita Mazumdar Chambers: That’s a great question. It’s something that we spend a lot time doing to make sure we have the right people who know the courts well, know the rules, are easy to work with … There’s so much that goes into that. We do a lot of research. We use our National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) networks to look for people to reach out to and use some of the NELA networking events too. If I meet someone at a conference, I can reach out to them. We also go by recommendations. We might ask our local NELA listserv or the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association (MWELA) listserv, “Hey, we’re going to file this case out in Washington state. Have you used anyone recently?” Having input from colleagues is really helpful and something we rely on. We’ve been really lucky with such great local counsel to help us in our cases.
[EXCERPT STARTING AT 28:23]
Host Max Barack: You always hear when you get a new case, “Oh, they barely worked here, they just got here, they were terrible from the moment they got here.” But if someone’s been there for close to 20 years, and they’ve got awards on awards on awards, and they’re a high performer, big organizations like that don’t keep incompetent people around and keep promoting them and rewarding them for performance. It’s nice, on the off-occasions, when you get a client who is so well suited to that role because you rarely get that perfect client.
Chambers: It’s just funny that you say the “perfect client” because I always think about that. I feel like no one’s a perfect employee, right? We all have our flaws or weaknesses in the workplace, but those people deserve protection too. It is just something we are always trying to push against: the standards in the case law. They shouldn’t have to be this picture perfect plaintiff — because that’s so rare.
