[lazide]

If the general policy is updated to ‘remote is forever’, save a copy - that’s part of your contract too!

If it gets changed in a way that causes you injury, guess what - you can be and should be compensated. If you can prove these things, then it should even be relatively easy to do so.

Contract law is not just things that say ‘contract’ on them. It is about agreements between parties.

Also, talk to a lawyer so they can look over the fine print and applicable statutes. They matter.

[abustamam]

When people say "talk to a lawyer" how does one go about finding a lawyer? Like in this case, would it be an employment lawyer, a contract lawyer? And what sorts of rates could we expect? Obviously it varies depending on the contract, but I always see people advise that people talk to a lawyer when doing XYZ which makes sense, but I never understood the exact process for this.

[lazide]

Very good question. If you ask your friends, a good reference can help. Most people don’t have any attorneys on retainer, let alone know if they’re good or not though.

Usually what I’ve done is brute force. Every State has a State bar that usually has listings. Google Maps searches for ‘employment attorney near me’ or ‘civil law attorney near me’ also usually gives a lot of matches.

I dump it all into a spreadsheet, and then go down the list taking notes and calling each one. Attorneys should give a free consult (anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour).

Try to learn as much as you can about the applicable law and the situation; and ask questions. Not just what is legal/not-legal, but their history in getting actual results for clients and what the courts will actually take seriously or not.

Don’t pick anyone right away. Call at least 3, preferably 10 in each speciality.

If you like them and they like you, they’ll either take you on contingency or ask you to give them a retainer (funds to be put into a trust they can bill against). Either way there will be some paperwork they’ll have you sign before they’re ’your attorney’.

Additionally, some things to look out for -

1) anyone that makes you pay up front for a consultation is bad news. Run away.

2) anyone that promises a result is bad news. Run away.

3) Anyone who takes a case without asking specific questions and arguing with you sometimes is bad news. Run away.

4) anyone who tells you something that seems wrong (and you can’t verify independently, even after you ask for a reference) is probably bad news. Run away if you even suspect it.

Employment law is its own speciality.

Contract law is generally a subset of civil law. Civil law is a huge umbrella, from ‘my neighbors tree dropped a branch on my house’ to ‘the mega corp. in my county has been poisoning the water for decades and I got cancer’. You’ll run across attorneys who handle many different areas, ask them what they do and what their style is.

I hope this helps!

P.S. most states and countries put their laws online. There is still usually case laws which modify it, and gotchas, etc. but you can figure out 95% of it if you find them and do your own research. Leginfo.ca.gov is the California One. When you’re talking to attorneys, feel free to ask them for applicable cases and/or codes to start looking at.