Employees, listen up! The right company document could mean the difference between having no case at all and being awarded millions of dollars in punitive damages. If you're an employee, you should absolutely save these critical documents. This is especially true if you suspect something unlawful is happening to you at work. So stick around, because I'm going to tell you why you should save company documents, when you should do it, What documents you should save and how to save them properly.
This video is part three in a four-part series called How to Document Bad Behavior at Work. in the first video i detailed how to properly take notes when bad things happen at work the second video was all about saving those critical emails this video is about how to save important company documents especially those confidential documents that everyone is worried about in the last video is all about text messages. I strongly recommend that you watch all four of these videos because every single case I handle involves all four of these types of evidence and it is truly unfortunate when we are unable to get a piece of evidence in discovery that our client could have saved easily while they were still employed had they simply been thinking ahead.
But before we get to the principal details I need to quickly say two things. Number one, I have a license to practice law in California, but I'm making this video for all employees in America. While this video covers some basics, you should not take this as legal advice for your situation.
The rules of evidence are different from state to state, and more importantly, I don't know you or anything about your situation. If you need legal advice, you need to pick up the phone and call a lawyer in your state. Number two, if you are in California, please don't call me looking for answers to basic legal questions.
The free consultation process at my office is primarily for Californians who got fired and they believe they have a case for wrongful termination, discrimination, or something serious like that. The consultation process is not for giving out free. legal advice. Alright, with all that out of the way, let's get back to the whiteboard.
Alright, let's talk big picture. Why should employees save company documents at all? While it might seem obvious to some people, most people genuinely don't understand how our legal system works.
First, if you must file a lawsuit down the road, saving documents now will be very helpful in proving your case. But it's even more basic than that. that. If you can show, and not just allege, if you can actually show that something unlawful has happened to you, the value of your case goes up considerably. They are far more likely to come to the bargaining table with real money if you've got great evidence at the start of your case.
Moreover, since most cases settle long before trial, The main benefit of having written evidence is that your lawyer can use those documents to educate the defense lawyers on how they are going to lose and how their client is going to have to pay you a significant sum of money when they lose. And in turn, those defense lawyers are going to tuck their inflated ego between their legs, go back to their client and say, hey, we should settle this case. So to be clear, if you have a case, the only way your lawyer is going to get you a fair settlement is by exerting significant legal leverage against your former employer and allegations just don't do that proof does before we talk about what documents you should be saving we should first talk about when you should consider saving them in the first place if you've watched the first two videos in this series you already know my general recommendation is that you should start saving company documents when the following three conditions have been met number one you are experiencing a significant issue at work. Number two, whatever is happening to you is seriously impacting your ability to do your job.
And number three, you suspect that the conduct at issue is unlawful or it stems from an unlawful act or it's part of a pattern of unlawful behavior. Now obviously you don't need to be a lawyer to suspect that something unlawful is going on, right? I've made videos on just about every major area of employment law now, so if you think something bad is happening to you at work, chances are that I've made a video about it. And you can quickly get up to speed by watching some of the legal basics that I lay out in those videos.
I'll put some links in the description below to my major areas of employment law in those videos. Now, if you're confused at all by this, don't worry about it. At the end of the day, err on the side of caution, save the important company documents, and you'll put your mind at ease. Okay, so what documents are important to save?
Obviously, you don't want to save every single document from work. That's a nightmare for your lawyer and a waste of time and energy. You only want to save the documents that are important to your case.
So, which documents are important in employment lawsuits? I'm gonna tell you. Number one, the essential emails. Obviously, you should be saving the key emails, and this is a really big topic.
That's why the last video I published covered saving emails extensively. So if you wanna know exactly which emails to save, go watch that video when you finish this one. But I do wanna talk about something that I didn't mention in the last video. Email attachments.
Attachments need to be preserved along with the emails that you save. So if you print out your emails, you should also be printing out the attachments and saving them in chronological order. If you're PDFing your emails, then make sure you PDF the attachments and insert them into the PDF file along with your email. They need to be saved together because they were sent together.
Number two, you should absolutely be saving any complaint documents. Obviously, if you wrote a complaint about unlawful behavior and sent that to your manager or HR, you should definitely save that document. It's frankly unbelievable.
Unbelievable to me how many people call us and say they sent a complaint to HR and when I asked for a copy They don't have it, but you shouldn't stop there if they responded to your complaint You should save their responses to it Along with that, you should save any documents that demonstrate that they're now retaliating against you because of your complaint. For example, if you get written up a week after you submitted your complaint and the write-up is clearly retaliation, you should definitely save that. Number three, you should absolutely save performance-related documents. Obviously, you should keep your performance reviews from HR and from your managers.
Moreover, you should keep any press releases. documents that you get from customers or clients. For example, if your company receives a good online review because of you, take a screenshot and save that review. Make sure that your screenshot includes the date of the review so that your attorneys can take that and plug it into the timeline of your case.
You should also keep any write-ups or discipline documents that you receive while at work. Similarly, if they give you a performance improvement plan you should absolutely keep every page of that along with discipline you should absolutely keep any documents that show that you improved your performance after they reprimanded you you want to be able to show to the jury that you did everything that they asked you to do and more or if the burden that they put on you in the write-up is impossible to meet which is a very common tactic by the way You should save the evidence that demonstrates that you should also save the evidence that shows other Employees are not being required to meet the same obligations that might show an unlawful bias Which will significantly help your case Okay, number four you should also save all HR related documents You should be saving the common documents that you would normally associate with HR right like your your company's employee handbook policies and procedures, hiring documents, commission agreements, pay stubs, job description, etc. These documents are very important in every single employment case.
Number five, you want to save relevant confidential documents. We are going to talk more about this in a few minutes. This is super important, so you need to keep watching so you don't miss that section. It's important to remember that these employment cases usually incubate over many months, sometimes years. So you might be dealing with a situation for a while.
a long period of time before you get fired. I'm telling you this because if you're in the middle of something right now and you're just realizing that you should be saving documents, it's important that you go back in time and save the important ones that I just mentioned, right? The next thing I need to mention might seem counterintuitive, but it is critically important. You should never hide or delete bad documents. Now listen carefully.
carefully here, it's really important that you're honest with your attorney and honest throughout the pendency of your entire case. If you truly have a case, you want to tell your lawyer all the good facts and the bad facts right up front. That way your lawyer can prepare defenses ahead of time instead of being surprised and unprepared with the best way to defend you.
Every case has bad facts. Good lawyers can deal with bad facts, but when people hide... or delete things their case goes down in flames every single time okay let's now talk about how I recommend that you save important documents first let's talk about a couple things that I would avoid number one I would avoid forwarding yourself emails or emailing documents more specifically though I'm worried about you forwarding documents from your work email to your personal email account now if you've already done this it's not the end of the world but let me explain why I would avoid doing this going forward if you forward yourself documents like this two things are going to happen number one that the company is going to find out about it most sophisticated companies have software to detect this or down the road they will hire specialized folks who will figure out exactly what you sent yourself number two eventually the defense lawyers will know exactly what you saved and what you didn't save. That knowledge can be used against you in litigation down the road.
Also, if you forward emails to your personal email account, you start opening the door to discovery on your personal emails. And trust me, you don't want a defense lawyer poking around through your personal emails. Secondly, I would avoid saving documents on a company computer.
computer. You should avoid storing documents that you want to preserve anywhere on a company controlled computer, device, software, etc. For example, let's say you're storing them in a folder on your company computer.
The moment the company thinks that you're a threat to them or right after they fire you, you will get locked out of that device and lose access to them. And that's not very helpful, right? Now, if you've made either of these two mistakes, don't freak out about it.
It's probably not the end of the world. I've had lots of clients that did this and we were still able to successfully pursue their case. It just makes the lawsuit more difficult, more unpleasant, and potentially less valuable. Alright, now that we've talked about it, let's get into the video.
about what to avoid let's look at the four strategies that i do recommend strategy number one print out the documents my favorite strategy is to simply print out the documents and take them home when you get home You can scan them and save them on your personal computer, or you can just save the originals and then give them to your lawyer physically when he or she asks for them. The reason why I like printing rather than emailing documents to yourself is that it is much less likely to leave a digital footprint, and thus the defense lawyers are much less likely to know that you saved documents. Most printers do not keep a stored record of the documents. that they print but if your printer at work stores a digital copy of what you printed and you can't delete it you may not want to use this strategy now I also want to emphasize something here and this applies to all of the strategies that I recommend and discuss today when you save a document using any of these strategies you should be saving the entire document don't just print out the one page that you think is important your legal team will need the context behind that page So print the entire document if possible. All right, strategy number two.
Print to a PDF and email it to yourself using an independent email account. What am I talking about here? Well, I like this strategy if the first one is not available to you for whatever reason. For this strategy, I recommend that you set up an independent web-based free email account like Gmail or Yahoo or something like that.
This will remain separate. from your personal email account, and it will not exist on the hard drive of a company computer. When you're saving important documents, print your documents to a PDF, attach them using a set up a new email using your new independent email account, attach the document and email it to yourself.
While I like this strategy it comes with one significant drawback. If you're using a work computer, whatever you print to a PDF will create a digital record of what documents you saved. While this is significantly harder for a company to detect as compared to using your work email account to email yourself, a competent and motivated company might be able to find them. Strategy number three is simply to take pictures using your personal phone.
This strategy is obviously really basic, right? Get out your phone, not a work phone, phone and take pictures of the important documents. If the first two strategies are impractical for whatever reason, this is a great option, right? It might be good because it's super easy.
I mean, you're just taking pictures. While it is safer than the first two strategies, as there is no digital trace on any company-controlled computer, it does come with a couple significant drawbacks. First of all, pictures like this are usually really annoying to read, right?
They are sloppy and thus they will frustrate your lawyer and the jury down the road. Secondly, it's hard to save a bunch of pictures like this in a way that it doesn't become a jigsaw puzzle for the attorneys to figure out down the road. On top of that, you might end up saving dozens or hundreds of documents and emails depending on how complicated your case becomes. This gets really tedious and annoying after a while.
Finally, it is inevitable that your photo will not capture every important element of the document. I can't tell you how many times people have sent me pictures of documents or emails where the title, footnotes, page number, or something else that is important was cut off. That missing context might really hurt your case down the road.
Strategy number four. Okay, keep a log of relevant documents. This strategy is my least preferred.
preferred as you're not actually saving the document at all, but it might be preferable to you if you don't think any of the first three strategies would work. In this strategy, you're either handwriting or keeping a digital journal on your personal phone where you keep a descriptive log of all your important documents. What do I mean by this? What exactly do you write down? Well, let me give you an example.
On March 3rd, 2020, my boss... Jane Smith sent me an email at 1032 titled, write up for yesterday's meeting. In the email, there was an attached PDF titled, disciplinary action, where she criticized me for voicing my opinion about how the company was violating HIPAA. The document said she was documenting my insubordinate behavior for second guessing her procedures on the law. When you give a log of entries like this to your lawyer, Your lawyer will know exactly what to ask for in discovery.
He or she can overcome most objections that defense lawyers will throw at him and justify in detail why the documents are important so the judge can force the company to give you the actual documents. Now, this strategy won't preserve the actual document or protect it from being destroyed, but it will be wonderful to have if the company does destroy or delete the document. it.
Juries absolutely hate it when a party in a lawsuit deletes incriminating evidence. So if you can convince them that they did because you kept this log, it'll probably help your case significantly. Needless to say, there are lots of problems with this strategy, but it's absolutely better than nothing. I need to interrupt the video for just a second.
If you feel like employers should stop retaliating against employees, then go ahead and hit the like button down below. If you've found this video to be helpful so far, please hit the subscribe button so that YouTube knows that you want to see more information like this from me. Now, time is the most important resource that we all have, and it takes me an incredible amount of time to create these videos. So if you find this information to be helpful or not, please take 20 seconds and tell me why and leave a comment in the comment section down below. I try to answer a lot of questions.
a lot of the questions that people ask on my videos. All right, let's get back to it. Now we need to address the big concern that people have with this whole process.
What if you take documents that contain confidential company information, so-called purloined documents. Can you take these documents and give them to your lawyer? If you're not supposed to take them, what are the consequences if you do anyway? What if these confidential documents contain key evidence that proves you are the victim of unlawful retaliation?
Let's break this subject down. First, a couple big subjects. Number one, the very first thing I want to say about this, is to take a deep breath and remain calm.
Some people really freak out about this. But in most whistleblower and retaliation type situations, there are laws in most states that protect people if they take confidential documents and just give them to their lawyer. If you're really worried about this, you should consult with a lawyer in your state before you take any documents.
The second big subject. We ought to take a big step back and look at the big picture. Let's say hypothetically that you breached some sort of confidentiality provision or obligation in your employee handbook by saving some confidential documents. Is your employer likely to sue you over that? I mean, let's think about this logically.
If you're like most employees, you're probably not a deep pocket. Why would a company want to sue you if they're very unlikely to recover any actual money from you? What damages have you caused? caused if you've just taken confidential documents and given them to your lawyer?
Probably none. So in a vacuum, why would a company sue you over it? After all, it's going to cost them tens of thousands of dollars, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire a lawyer and go after you.
That doesn't make any business sense. And if they have an insurance policy, which they probably do, it makes even less sense because the adjuster is not going to authorize the spending. of legal fees on a frivolous suit like this. However, this and this alone is not the full picture because the next big subject is what I call counterclaim risk.
So in a vacuum, are they likely to sue you? No, but if you are suing them for something, they might file a counterclaim against you as a litigation tactic, but this is not a reason to panic. This is just one move in a long chess game that is your lawsuit.
It is a tactic to scare you and make you think that your position is weaker before negotiations. The veracity of this risk depends on the strength of your lawsuit. If you have a strong case, this isn't much of a real risk.
But if you have a bad case or a bad lawyer, this could become a real risk, especially if you really upset the company. Now the risk of this depends on several things, like how did you come upon the documents in the first place? Did you have legitimate access to those documents or did you hack into your boss's computer to get them and even if your access was legitimate did you sign some sort of confidentiality agreement or not moreover in what is in your specific documents do the documents contain trade secrets attorney-client communications or confidential customer information the variabilities are wild from case to case so it's hard to draw conclusions in a video like this at the end of the day day my recommendation can generally be summed up in five bullet points only number one only consider taking confidential documents that you come across in the normal course of your employment right do not hack or attempt to gain access to documents in some sort of deceptive way number two only consider taking documents that are relevant to your case as we talked about earlier number three preserve the documents in a way that the company is on unlikely to find out or independently find out that you took them. Number four, don't share these documents with anybody but your attorney. Ultimately if you hire a good lawyer, he or she will know how to navigate this situation regardless of what kind of nonsense the company throws at you.
And number five, trust your attorney in the lawsuit. If you have a case, your attorney will make the decisions about how, when, or if. those documents will be disclosed in the lawsuit.
If you hide or conceal documents from your lawyer, you handicap their ability to protect you. So hire a good lawyer and trust them. Okay, sorry for another long video, but I didn't want to do a half job on this super important subject. Now, obviously, it takes me a lot of time and energy to put these videos together. So if you got something useful out of it, please subscribe to my channel.
If you know somebody who should watch this video, send me a message. it to them. Now, I need you to stay tuned for the next video on how to properly save text messages and other instant type messages. Text messages are often the juiciest form of evidence in employment cases. For some reason, people are willing to say the most amazing things in text messages.
They can absolutely help you win your case. However, you have to be careful. You can also ruin your case by sending the wrong kind of messages. So you really don't want to miss the next video.
Finally, if you are in California and you believe that you were wrongfully terminated, discriminated, retaliated, or some other unlawful act was done against you, feel free to call my office for a free consultation. If you're outside of California, go ahead and call a lawyer in your state. That is all I have for you. I hope you have a great day.