If you want to Right a Wrong, Virtual In-House Counsel can help you if:

You feel your employee rights have been violated

You have a problem with a contractor

A customer refuses to pay for work you have done

Someone is holding your domain name hostage

You are seeking an alternative to a lawsuit

… You feel your employee rights have been violated
In Washington State, employees can be discharged with or without good cause. This is called employment "at will".  However, you cannot legally be fired in retaliation for filing a worker's compensation claim or taking medical lease under the FMLA, nor for engaging in "protected activity" such as complaining about discrimination.

Also, your employer may have a contractual relationship with you which requires a "good cause" justification for termination.  Policy expressed in the Employee Handbook may establish such a relationship.

Virtual In-House Counsel has experiences in many employment law areas including discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination. We are experienced in negotiating severance packages and settlement agreements. We have pursued many employment cases to trial and to appeal.  We are experienced in working with the Personnel Appeals Board in matters concerning government employees.

… You have a problem with a contractor (return to top)
A party may commit a minor breach of a contract and still be considered to have substantially performed his duties under its terms, and therefore created your obligation to pay him.  This might regard hardware that was unavailable and therefore replaced with equal or greater value. The important issue is the intent of the parties.

Unconscionability is sometimes used in defense when a bargain is one-sided and one of the parties has substantially superior bargaining power over the other party. There is no precise definition, but there are criteria. Some samples of unconscionable acts are:

• Hidden, risk-shifting provisions in preprinted contracts. Typically these provisions are in fine print, inconspicuous, and incomprehensible to the average person.
• Adhesion contracts sometimes include provisions preventing unwitting consumers from purchasing necessary goods without agreeing to additional purchases or conditions.

These are tactics often directed at illiterate or non-English speaking customers.

… Your customer refuses to pay for the work you've done (return to top)
In construction there is the substantial performance doctrine, which says that if the performance nearly equals what was bargained for by the parties, then payment must be made. If the owner can occupy or utilize the work for the use for which it was intended, then the work will be deemed substantially complete and the owner is obligated to make payment. However, it should be remembered that an owner is permitted to make a reasonable deduction for the cost of achieving full performance.

… Someone is holding your domain name hostage (return to top)
An entire specialty area of legal practice has evolved with the advent of eCommerce regarding the nature of intellectual property and related legal issues. You need to know how to protect your company's intellectual assets. Virtual In-House Counsel can help identify problems and make appropriate referrals to specialists in this field. For example:

• You own a trademark and find that someone is holding it hostage as a domain name until you pay a large sum for it. 
• Your company has developed a new way of conducting eCommerce and you want to prevent others from using it.

… You are seeking an alternative to a lawsuit  (return to top)
Sometimes referred to as Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), mediation and arbitration are alternatives to the use of lawsuits to resolve legal disputes. These procedures typically involve one or more persons other than a judge or a court to help resolve conflicts and disputes.

In mediation, a trained mediator will help you and your opponent resolve your disagreement by identifying , defining, and discussing the things about which you disagree. This is an informal, cooperative problem-solving process.

Arbitration, on the other hand, is a more formal proceeding in which you and your opponent will be asked to present evidence and witnesses to the presiding arbitrator, who will issue a written decision to resolve the dispute. In many cases, the decision of the arbitrator is binding on the parties and final.

Virtual In-House Counsel has extensive experience in both forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution and routinely recommends that a matter be resolved in that fashion rather than proceeding with a lawsuit.

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