Failing to educate and to train the individuals who are involved in the hiring process about laws applicable to that process, about questions that should not be asked of applicants, and particularly about issues involving the Americans With Disabilities Act and similar state and local laws. Statements made and questions asked in the hiring process can be used to help establish liability under a host of anti-discrimination laws. Misstatements also can create contracts of employment which operate to nullify Florida’s "At Will" employment rule.
	Failing to adequately and thoroughly investigate an applicant’s background. That can amount to negligent hiring, and can subject the firm and the administrator to personal liability if, for example, the applicant/employee later engages in violence (e.g., assault and battery, sexual assault) in or about the workplace. Florida law provides some measure of protection for negligent hiring if you do it right. [See Fla. Stat. Ann. § 768.096 (Where an employee injures a third party, the employer is presumed not to have been negligent in hiring such employee if, before hiring that employee, the employer conducted a "background investigation" of the prospective employee and the investigation did not reveal any information that reasonably demonstrated the unsuitability of the prospective employee for the particular work to be performed for the employer or for the employment in general)].
	Failing to comply with the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This law has been a "sleeper." The Plaintiffs’ Bar is just beginning to realize the opportunities presented by the many employers who are not complying with the FCRA.
	Failing to have accurate, written job descriptions. This is particularly important with respect to claims under the Americans With Disabilities Act.
	Failing to have "At Will" employment language in the application documents and in the firm’s employee handbook. If you don’t have that language, it is more difficult to defeat a claim for breach of an oral contract of employment. Also, the employee handbook should state that the handbook constitutes guidelines only; and, that the handbook does not create a contract as to the benefits or policies contained in it.
	Failing to have appropriate documentation under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA).

Failing to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act. Secretaries as secretaries are not "exempt" no matter how much they are paid. The same holds true, generally, for paralegals. Many employees classified as "administrative assistants" usually are not really exempt from the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

	Failing to have and to publish a written, effective policy prohibiting harassment, including sex harassment; failing to train managerial and supervisory individuals about harassment, including sex harassment. It is absolutely essential to have an effective, anti-harassment policy. Please note that I have referred to an anti-harassment policy which includes sex harassment. The anti-harassment policy must address all forms of harassment (e.g., racial harassment, national origin harassment, religious harassment and so forth). Many organizations have only a sex harassment policy. That is dangerous. For example, if you have only a sex harassment policy, a plaintiff in a race harassment case will argue to the jury that you think sex harassment is important (because you have a policy on that point) but that racial harassment apparently is unimportant to you (because the firm’s policies do not proscribe that form of harassment).
	The biggest single problem causing, or involved in, employment-related litigation is that many firms and organizations do not properly handle and/or document performance and discipline. If an organization terminates an employee for performance-related problems, the judge or jury expects the organization’s records to fully support the performance deficiencies. If the documentation is not there, you are probably going to lose the case. Here are some of the common problems.
	Failing to have an effective performance evaluation system.
	Failing to train people in how to use the performance evaluation system.
	Failing to be honest and candid in evaluating employees; and the related problem of failing to clearly advise an employee of work performance deficiencies.
	Failing to see that employees are evaluated on job-related criteria, as opposed to the usual tendency to rate personality rather than performance.
	Failing to see that evaluators avoid bias in the evaluation process. There is a natural tendency for evaluators to give favorable ratings to someone like themselves.
	Failing to see that disciplinary actions are properly documented.

Failing to give the employee who is in trouble because of performance deficiencies clear written notice of the performance problems, of needed improvements, and failing to advise the employee of the consequences (e.g. termination) of his or her failure to correct the deficiencies within a specified time frame. This is sometimes referred to as the "last chance" letter. If a former employee sues you after you have terminated him or her, such an employee may claim that you abruptly fired him or her without giving any warning whatsoever as to any alleged performance problems. A jury will not like that. Further, purely from a human resources standpoint, it is a good idea to utilize such letters because, when confronted with such a letter, employees sometimes do take the performance issue seriously, and do attempt to do better in their respective jobs.

Having decentralized decision-making with respect to disciplinary matters. Decentralized decision-making with respect to discipline is particularly dangerous in the field of employment discrimination litigation. In the law firm context, decentralization usually means allowing attorneys (or managers, such as accounting or information systems) make decisions as to discipline or termination. That can result in inconsistent treatment of employees. That can result in a verdict for some form of illegal discrimination. The classic definition of discrimination is treating like cases differently. All proposed disciplinary actions should be reviewed at a central source.

Failing to conduct the termination of an employee in a professional and dignified fashion.

Providing negative reference information about former employees. (The more you say, the more you pay.) It is true that Florida law protects you and the law firm to some extent for providing negative reference information about a former employee. [See Fla. Stat. Ann. § 768.095 (An employer who discloses information about a former or current employee to a prospective employer at the request of that employee is immune from civil liability for such disclosure or its consequences unless the employee shows by clear and convincing evidence that the disclosed information was knowingly false or violated the employee’s civil rights)]. Therefore, if you do provide negative reference information about a former employee, in all likelihood you and your firm will be declared not guilty after two or three years of defamation litigation and tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.