Pathway 05
Handbooks, leave laws, accommodations, retaliation protections, and post-employment restrictions for employers and employees.
Workplace law runs on overlapping systems: federal statutes set the floor, states build above it, and internal policy fills the gaps — which means the same leave request or complaint can trigger three sets of rules at once. These guides untangle the overlaps employers and employees most often get wrong.
Each one is written for both sides of the desk. Whether you are drafting the handbook or reading it against your employer, you will find the same questions answered: what the law requires, what documentation proves, and where the process usually breaks down.
Foundational guide
Workplace Rights & HR
One medical absence can trigger three different laws with three different clocks. Whether time off is protected — and paid — depends on which of them apply and how they run together.
Handbooks that hold up because they describe reality.
Workplace Rights & HR
A handbook is evidence. When it promises procedures nobody follows, it stops protecting the employer and starts testifying against it. Here is how to write one the workplace can actually live by.
FMLA, ADA, state layers, and the interactive process.
Workplace Rights & HR
One medical absence can trigger three different laws with three different clocks. Whether time off is protected — and paid — depends on which of them apply and how they run together.
Workplace Rights & HR
A request for a workplace accommodation starts a structured back-and-forth, not a one-time yes or no. Here is how the interactive process runs, what documentation each side may ask for, and where it commonly breaks down.
Retaliation rules and what survives after employment ends.
Workplace Rights & HR
Retaliation is the most common finding in federal workplace charges, and whistleblower deadlines can be as short as 30 days. Here is how protected activity, adverse action, and causation fit together.
Workplace Rights & HR
Three different promises — keep secrets, leave clients alone, don't compete — are governed by fifty states rather than one federal rule. Here is what actually binds you after your last day.
Questions here often lead into these areas next.