A good employment attorney looks at the whole picture. What is the work environment like? What are the circumstances? We have to look under a lot of rocks to get a good feel what is and was going on in a workplace. Discrimination is rarely blatant; often it's subtle. It can be the subconscious aspects of a work environment that are important. And those intangibles, if you will, can contribute to the nature of a claim and the outcome of a case.

I recently handled a case involving professionals in their late 50s, more than 20 years with their company, who were let go in a downsizing. The whole department was dismantled. Not unusual at a large company in this day and age. But what was notable was that almost every other member of the department was relocated to other departments. And those employees were in their 30s. My clients were summarily dismissed. There was a settlement, and an appropriate one.

We handle many cases involving severance and other exit and outplacement issues. It is a large part of our work. What is becoming clear, though, is managers and other professionals who are moving from organization to organization more frequently, and in the process are learning an important lesson: How you enter a job will often determine how you exit a job. What I mean is, an entry package - and the agreements reached then - with your employee can often protect you from problems with termination and/or downsizing down the road. I have worked with many professionals in structuring compensation and employment packages long before any disagreements or conflicts take place.