An Employment Lawyer Who Brings Wit and Wisdom to the Workplace

[00:00:09] John Reed: It may surprise you, or maybe not, that in the course of my professional life, I've been put on performance improvement plans (what we quaintly call being PIP'd), I've been fired, and I've survived a few bosses with questionable ethics. As a manager, I've hired and not hired job candidates on the front end and disciplined and terminated employees on the back end. In many cases, the people involved, including me, may not have been at our best. We were just imperfect humans navigating difficult situations.

If you've met me even once, you know I enjoy a good laugh. I try to find the funny. Have I taken humor too far or failed to read the room trying to be droll and witty? You bet. But as today's guest reminds me, respectful, situationally appropriate humor acknowledges our shared humanity. It says, "What we're experiencing here is awkward and uncomfortable." Done right, humor is a tension defuser, it's a teaching tool, and as the saying goes, it's the best medicine for what ails us at a particular time.

Leah Stiegler is a management-side labor and employment attorney who helps clients prevent workplace issues, defends them when disagreements turn into disputes, and pulls lessons from those disputes to help employers and employees build healthier workplace cultures. We'll hear about her career starting in elementary school, her serious approach to the law, and how she uses humor creatively to be a better lawyer and counselor.

Welcome to the podcast, Leah.

[00:01:42] Leah Stiegler: Thank you for having me, John.

[00:01:43] John Reed: So, you are very good at what you do, and we'll talk about that. But first, you've found a way to use humor in your practice. I mean, employment discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, workplace policies. This is funny stuff. How do you use humor when you're talking to people about sensitive topics? Also, where's the line?

[00:02:03] Leah Stiegler: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so you're asking me to give away my proprietary secrets.

[00:02:08] John Reed: Yep, absolutely. Please do.

[00:02:10] Leah Stiegler: For you, I will do that. I think I've naturally just found that humor helps people retain information. So, whether you're doing something like a management training or a workforce training, if people are laughing and enjoying themselves, they're going to pay attention and retain information and not zone out. But in dealing with this sensitive topic, I think at times you really have to know that it's okay to laugh about the stuff that happens in life because nobody is perfect. There are things that you thought you'd never see that you end up seeing, especially in the workplace.

But then, where is the line? That's a good question, and that was posed to me very early on as an associate. I had just done a speaking engagement. We sent out feedback surveys, and someone wrote back that they thought I misunderstood the task, and I was trying to be the class clown. And so, one of the senior partners came to my office and had to have a mentor conversation with me of, "Look, you're really young. People aren't going to take you seriously, number one. So don't try to be a clown. And then number two, this isn't entertainment, this is law." I can't tell you that I necessarily listened to him, but things have worked out okay for me.

[00:03:18] John Reed: I, I guess so. Yeah. Boy, what a buzzkill. 

[00:03:20] Leah Stiegler: Exactly. I was like, you're just listening to one person who, there's always going to be one person in an audience who's offended by something.

[00:03:27] John Reed: The thing is, though, you can't entertain or be humorous or whatever, and I realize that's not necessarily what you're going for specifically, but you can't do that without telling stories. And stories are what you remember. If you give people a bulleted list, forget it. But if you give them context and a story, they'll remember it. And if it happens to be memorable because it's entertaining, then it works, right?

[00:03:49] Leah Stiegler: A hundred percent. And I actually, I read this—here's some proprietary information—I read this book a couple years ago called Talk Like TED, and it was about improving your public speaking skills because I public speak at least twice a week, whether it's to an association or a workforce of some sort, group of managers. And one of the key elements of helping people retain information and ensuring that people pay attention was telling stories and anecdotes. I think they said something like, the attention span is really small, but people will remember the takeaway from a specific story.

And every case, you know this, is a story. It is really easy to think about almost any case you have and some crazy stuff that's happened in the case. And instead of just putting up on a PowerPoint, "Oh, here are the elements of a sexual harassment claim," being like, "You guys will never believe this case we dealt with a few years ago." And then telling that story and making people laugh by nature of what came up in the workplace where these allegations came from.

[00:04:48] John Reed: The phrase I use is make the other person feel less not okay than you. So, if you tell them a bad situation, it's like, "Okay, at least I didn't do that. Or at least I'm not going to do that."

[00:04:58] Leah Stiegler: Right, right. Or if they're sitting there realizing, you know what? My workplace isn't that bad.

[00:05:04] John Reed: And I think you've also equated the employment lifecycle to dating. This is kind of one of your spiels, as it were.

[00:05:12] Leah Stiegler: Yeah. Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I've thought about this because I spent many years on online dating apps. Have you ever had that pleasure, John?

[00:05:22] John Reed: I can neither confirm nor deny. No, I'm old enough that I escaped that. 

[00:05:26] Leah Stiegler: Good for you, but you've really missed out on some great stories in your life. I will tell you a fun fact about me. I did, actually, two of my clients I met on a dating app. So, when you make a profile, in case you're not familiar with this—if you haven't watched The Tinder Swindler on Netflix, great documentary by the way— you get a picture of someone, then it'll say like, their education, and then it'll also have in there what do they do?

And so, as an employment lawyer, I very easily started to see, oh, HR, HR, HR, HR. So, my matching came about really easily. It was like I'd slide into their DMs and be like, "Hey, I'm speaking at this seminar. If you want to come, I can get you a discount code, a registration code."

In case you're worried about the ethics of dating clients, none of these ever turned into chemistry and we were going to date, but it was an easy target audience to bring someone in to come to a seminar.

Dating is a lot like recruiting good employees. And in terms of casting a wide net, making sure you have the right interview questions down. And then once they're onboarded and you're going out on a few dates and getting a little more serious, really getting to understand their performance. Okay? And don't take that in a naughty—get your mind out of the gutter—but their performance, but also the benefits that come with relationships, communication style, misconduct, making sure no one's convicted of anything. And then when you have to end things, making sure you have a healthy departure.

[00:07:02] John Reed: As opposed to a bad breakup.

[00:07:04] Leah Stiegler: Exactly, and a lawsuit coming your way.

[00:07:07] John Reed: Funny, I've never thought of Hinge as a business development tool, but now you've cast it in a completely different light for me.

[00:07:14] Leah Stiegler: I'm giving all of your lawyer listeners the ultimate proprietary information on how to market yourself.

[00:07:20] John Reed: Need a client? Swipe right. Or left. I don't even know how to swipe, so I'll just leave it at that.

[00:07:26] Leah Stiegler: It goes the reverse. I have had people try to match with me because they wanted free legal advice.

[00:07:32] John Reed: Oh.

[00:07:33] Leah Stiegler: I went out on a date one time, and the person brought a letter, a cease-and-desist letter, and they were trying to get my legal advice on assessing this risk. And I was just like, check.

[00:07:45] John Reed: Leah, you've said in various places that you originally dreamed of "being the boss" when you were growing up. Tell me about that version of yourself. What did younger Leah think "being the boss" meant, and how has that panned out?

[00:08:00] Leah Stiegler: Let me go down the hall and ask some of my office colleagues. As a young kid, I was definitely very insubordinate, and I hated that parents would tell you what to do, or that teachers could tell you to be quiet or whatnot.

I always got on my report card in elementary school. Instead of giving grades, they gave you conduct words. I don't know if you've ever seen this. So, mine would say NSC: needs self-control. Because I was just, I was just a little more advanced, I think, John.

[00:08:37] John Reed: Sure. Oh, I can tell.

[00:08:40] Leah Stiegler: But yeah, so I would always complain like, “Well, why do we have to do things that way? Or “Well, why is that the rule? Or “Why do I have to take the trash out now?” And so, my parents would always say, “Well, when you are the boss, you get to make the decisions, or when you are this way.” And so, I didn't really understand that "the boss" was not its own career path, and there's no position called "the boss," but you could be a manager of a group of individuals or of a project in any different industry. So, it took a few years, probably into my high school years, 'til I really understood that there wasn't just like a career path of I'm going to be the boss when I grow up.

[00:09:16] John Reed: Let's talk about your education. You've got a very impressive academic pedigree. Summa cum laude from Virginia Tech with degrees in Environmental Policy and Planning, as well as Spanish Language and Literature. Then, if that wasn't enough, you went to Richmond Law, graduated cum laude, Order of the Coif. Somewhere along the way, maybe between Virginia Tech and Richmond, or maybe before, law entered the picture. You've shown that you really like to stay within the lines, and of course, the law is just so vague. There are no strictures to it at all. So, I'm really curious to hear this evolution story.

[00:09:53] Leah Stiegler: It's funny because I was on a path where I was not necessarily going to be the boss, but I had at Virginia Tech, took some courses in sustainability. And I really became passionate about environmental science and environmental policy and planning. And I went to this protest in DC. It was a group of people, probably thousands of students from all over the country, that were in DC and basically trying to lobby Congress for legislation that would address issues impacting climate change.

John, there was six inches of snow on the ground, and it is really, really hard to advocate for the fact that we are experiencing global warming when everyone you are trying to talk to is wearing snow boots up to their knees and gloves up to their elbows. I don't know who planned that conference, but they need to take a different career path, because looking back on it, I was just an attendee, but who made that decision to plan this in January?

I was really frustrated. We got nowhere, of course. And so, I took the Metro back home. I lived in Northern Virginia at the time, and my dad was just sitting on the couch all nice and warm and cozy. And I was just frustrated, and he was like, “Well, so you don't think you made a difference.” And he was being kind of snooty with that question. And I was like, “No, I don't think I made a difference.” He goes, “Well, why don't you do something where you can make a difference, right? If you're pissed off about the laws, why don't you be in a position to change the laws? You go be the Congressperson or something.”

So, I wasn't going to admit to him that that was the right decision, but I started getting more interested in environmental law and ultimately went to law school to do that. And then while I was in law school doing that, I realized I didn't like that path of environmental law. Unfortunately, it's a lower-paid area of the law, but also, you're not really dealing with people and people's issues. And I love talking to people and getting to know the human brain. I really found myself a lot more passionate when I got into the employment law world than environmental law.

[00:12:03] John Reed: When did that introduction or decision about employment law come into play?

[00:12:09] Leah Stiegler: So, at my current firm, I was interning with them my second year of law school. We have a really awesome employment law team with some incredible mentors who I had then that are still here today. The two chairs of our employment law team at the time were college-level athletes, and I played basketball, and coached basketball, and was really, really big into that. They have this unspoken rule—and we don't really follow it as much anymore, so I can't get in trouble for saying this—but at the time, they had probably an unspoken rule that they only wanted to hire athletes because athletes really knew discipline and endurance and working hard. There's just a lot of things you learn from sports and team sports especially that work well for being a lawyer and working in a group, in a team.

They brought me into employment law and exposed me to it, and I really just enjoyed working with them and the issues that we were dealing with. I only got that opportunity because I'm an athlete. It's not like they saw anything I did, and they were like, "Oh, you would be great at employment law." They were just like. "Shoot, you can hit a free throw? You know, let's go! "

[00:13:17] John Reed: When you lose a case, do you have to run laps?

[00:13:19] Leah Stiegler: I have been known to put myself through some burpee exercises. But, John, I don't lose cases.

[00:13:25] John Reed: No, I'm sorry. Hypothetically, if one were to have a bad result in a case, would there be pushups involved?

[00:13:31] Leah Stiegler: Right, exactly. There you go. Thank you.

[00:13:32] John Reed: Okay. So, I'm going to refer to you as the quadruple threat because, within the employment law context, you are more than an employment generalist. You handle employment counseling, employment compliance, the regulatory space, employment litigation, and also labor law. That's very unusual to have that breadth. Is that just the way the firm does it? Is it because you have this interest across all those different areas? How did that come to be?

[00:14:04] Leah Stiegler: Yeah, that's a great question. I didn't realize that a lot of other firms didn't, that they did have attorneys who maybe specialized a lot more, like attorneys in today's world specialize in general. You rarely see someone who does a little bit of everything. But even under the umbrella of labor and employment law, I didn't realize that a lot of firms just did, for instance, employment litigation or just did employee benefits issues.

So, it's kind of the nature of the way my firm operates that we are all, we all do everything under that sort of umbrella. Now, naturally, we gravitate towards the things that we enjoy because I think our culture is that we want people to enjoy what they're doing. And if you're happy doing it, you're going to create a better product for clients. For instance, while I do litigation, employment defense litigation, I don't like being beholden to court deadlines. 

[00:14:57] John Reed: I'm shocked that you don't like to be held in place by those silly, silly court rules.

[00:15:03] Leah Stiegler: Yeah, it's because there's a different boss involved. It's that dang judge that's just setting everything. 

I feel like I'm pretty good at it, and there are certainly cases I really do become very passionate about. My real passion is working with clients on the day-to-day aspects of their workplace and their culture that they have. And so, whether it's compliance questions or dealing with an employee performance issue or an investigation, something that's going on in the workplace before it turns into confrontational litigation. That's really my specialty. But the benefit is that I have other colleagues who don't like that sort of off-the-cuff compliance work.

And so, when we get a lawsuit, we are a really good team, right? We always have staff, our teams with two or three attorneys. And so, there's a benefit if— John, I'm going to admit to you, I don't even know my password to Westlaw. I am not someone who's going to sit there and research all night. But I have a colleague down the hall who loves to do research and will draft these detailed memos and great briefs for cases. We know what we're good at.

[00:16:12] John Reed: What's interesting there, you have the entire risk spectrum, so you can take preventative measures, but if there's a problem you inherit and you have to go to dispute resolution or traditional litigation, you've got that awareness, too. It sounds like that's a real leg up.

[00:16:32] Leah Stiegler: I would think so. I hope other people see it that way. I'll give you an example on that.

With Charlie Kirk's murder, I've received so many just general compliance calls about, "Hey, this customer sent us these posts that our employee posted. They want us to terminate this employee." Or "Hey, another employee saw that this employee was reposting these things. We think this is offensive. Do we have to terminate? What should we do?" It would be really easy if I just went back and I said, " You know, if you're a public employer, here are the elements for how you address this under the First Amendment. And if you're a private employer, here's this." But I do think having some of that litigation background to show a client, what would your worst-case scenario look like?

One example I've been using a lot for clients the last few weeks is, you've got to think about one, your precedent, what you do here, and what happens in the future. Are you going to take action, or did you take action, for instance, when George Floyd was murdered and people posted something online? And I had a case that some colleagues and I handled a few years ago, where it was a Black male employee who was suing for race discrimination. And he had been transferred into a department. In that new department, he was supervising four white male subordinates. And within a week of his transfer, they all went to HR and said that he made threatening and violent comments. And HR was like, “Well, I've got four people saying that he did it. He's the only one saying he didn't do it.” It was a he-said, they-said situation. So, they ended up terminating him.

Fast forward to his race discrimination lawsuit. In discovery, we discovered that one of those subordinates had posted on social media three years earlier, after George Floyd was murdered, something so egregious, like, "It's time to grab your pitchforks, boys. It's time for some lynchings." And another one of those subordinates liked it. And so, we, as defense attorneys, we tried to file a motion to exclude those posts from coming in because they happened so many years before. And the court basically laughed in our face and was like. "Heck no. That shows bias. That shows race-based bias that these subordinates may have, right?" And so, I think being able to tell that story from the litigation aspect to these clients, to say if you don't take action here, and two years from now, this employee is a witness in another case or a witness in a harassment investigation, do you have any concerns that their bias is going to come forward?

[00:18:53] John Reed: You bring up a couple different things that I want to pursue here. We have become a more polarized nation. That certainly impacts the workplace. What are you telling clients right now about preparing, addressing that? How do you help them navigate divisiveness without losing their humanity?

[00:19:14] Leah Stiegler: Sure. You're right. I mean, what's happening in the world, that brings itself into the workplace. If an employee has a really strong view about Gaza and Palestine, they don't just walk into the workplace, clock in, and forget their views and their opinions. HR professionals, employment lawyers are dealing with everyone's very strong, divisive opinions in a way. I think it's hard to navigate. I think I've struggled as a lawyer sometimes having to put my foot in my mouth because I will assume talking to a client that maybe their opinion is more in line with mine personally, and I find out that they have very strong views the other way. And then you're like, oh, shoot, okay.

Or I'll have a client call, and very adamantly, they want to terminate someone. I had a client who called, and they wanted to terminate somebody because it was a young woman who got pregnant out of wedlock. And so how do I educate this person using the legal arguments that terminating a woman just because she got pregnant and wasn't married... While you may have some legal risks, right? My own opinion would be, that's the craziest thing to do, right? But I have to hold that back in some senses. So yeah, I think that's hard to deal with people's really, really divisive opinions.

[00:20:32] John Reed: There's a stereotype that a lawyer is the client's hired gun. That, at the end of the day, absent any unethical or criminal issues, the lawyer zealously protects and pursues the client's interest and is willing to jettison their own. Speak to that, particularly with what you do?

[00:20:49] Leah Stiegler: That's definitely a stereotype, that people can pay a lawyer to carry out what they want the lawyer to do for them. If I'm paying you $500 an hour, then you better go file this motion in the way I want you to file it or tell me that it's okay and I can check the box and say this person's good to be termed.

I truly think that doesn't serve a client's best interest. And we as lawyers have to serve clients' best interests in a way. I feel like there's an ethical duty to that, and that sometimes working with someone who maybe is on the opposite side of the aisle from you, that when you're having these discussions, maybe my personal opinion may show a different light to the client in terms of the risk. If you're my client and you really want to terminate that woman because she got pregnant out of wedlock, and I'm over here, and I'm telling you, look, if I were on your jury, here's how I could see that and giving them the ability to see it differently. If they were talking to an attorney who was on the very same side, who thought morally, that's so wrong. Wow, that's a sin, and that's terminable, then we need to fire them right away. They might miss the entire risks associated with that and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend a claim and also to look silly in the media potentially, for taking a certain stance, one stance or another.

[00:22:08] John Reed: How about the style, the approach the client wants you to take? Going for the jugular as opposed to being conciliatory, or not problem-solving, but going into scorched-earth battle mode.

[00:22:21] Leah Stiegler: That happens so much, and you probably can speak to this as well. Clients think when they hire you that you are going to be adverse and on the front lines with them against the other attorney. And it's almost like they often will see the other attorney as shady or a bad person, I am really good friends with most of the attorneys on the other side of the aisle because at least in Virginia, we have a really tight knit employment law bar. We do a lot of these very specific labor and employment conferences. We refer work across the aisle to each other. I don't do plaintiff's side work, so if I get a call, I'm going to pick up the phone and call someone who I know would be good at handling it.

There's a level of camaraderie associated with that, and I think that serves clients well because if I need an extension to get some discovery out, it's easy for me to pick up the phone and call someone who I'm going to get along with and give them an extension. But I will have clients all the time saying, “No, we're not giving them any extensions. They better turn it over tonight.”

As you know, I'm very insubordinate, so I'm not going to do something that I don't think is the right thing to do, if despite a client demanding that I do it. I'd rather lose the client. And I don't know how you feel about that.

[00:23:33] John Reed: You've got one client, and they have an opinion as to how you might behave. But you've got a career and as you say, you're dealing with a defined group of practitioners on both sides, and you've got to work with them.

It's funny. I clerked for a solo practitioner my first year in law school. He did a one-day trial on something, and when it was all over, opposing counsel came to shake his hand, and he made a show of not.

[00:24:04] Leah Stiegler: Wow.

[00:24:04] John Reed: He's like, that's what my client expects that I'm going to do.

[00:24:07] Leah Stiegler: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:08] John Reed: I took that to heart. I mean, at that point, you're kind of impressionable and you think, okay, alright, then that's the way to do it.

[00:24:13] Leah Stiegler: Right.

[00:24:14] John Reed: Then you get into the practice and you're seeing the same people on the other side of the table, other side of the aisle. I’ve got to work with these people.

[00:24:21] Leah Stiegler: Absolutely. I'm going to see them at a conference at some point. I heard in one of your other podcasts.

[00:24:27] John Reed: Oh, you flatter me now.

[00:24:29] Leah Stiegler: Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm going to get the name wrong. But you guys were talking about unsophisticated consumers, consumers of legal services. The difference between maybe your client being a one-person individual who's not used to the legal field, versus your client being a general counsel. Most general counsels or in-house counsels, they were in private practice of some sort, so they understand the nature of the legal community, right? Lawyers should not necessarily hate on other lawyers because we are all just advocating for our clients and doing our jobs.

In your example of the attorney not shaking their hand, I feel like if the client had been a general counsel, the client themselves would go shake hands with the other side. Sometimes, individuals or even owners of small businesses who've maybe never had to retain legal services before, stereotypically, tend to see you as, you're my hired gun. Bang, bang, go after the other side.

[00:25:23] John Reed: Yeah. Litigation as theater.

[00:25:25] Leah Stiegler: Yes, exactly right. Yeah.

[00:25:27] John Reed: We've talked about what you do. In terms of who you do it for, do you focus on any particular industry or industries?

[00:25:36] Leah Stiegler: I work in all different industries, so does our entire team. So, everything from, let's say, higher ed to manufacturing, to public employers, law enforcement, school systems, teachers, hospital systems, nonprofit zones. In every different industry, public and private.

[00:25:55] John Reed: So how does that work? How do you shift gears between such different workplaces and cultures, and also speak the language of those industries and employers and employees?

[00:26:07] Leah Stiegler: I think being curious helps. If I felt like I knew everything about a particular industry, I may not ask all the right questions to fully give me context. If I'm dealing with an employment situation for let's say a manufacturing company, and I don't know anything about how these nuclear devices or whatnot are made, or this software is made, then asking a ton of questions to really get an idea of what does this particular employee do, right? If they're calling and saying, “Hey, this employee wants to work from home.” Okay, well, I really need to understand their day-to-day. I also make an effort to try to go to client sites because I'm a visual learner, and I think that helps to go walk around and see things.

[00:26:47] John Reed: In my line of work, of course, I'm talking to people about business development. And you just nailed two of what I consider to be the pillars. And that is, go to the client's workplace, because if you're not myopic, you may see some things that don't jibe in the employment context, and you can come back and say, “Hey, I saw this, and proactively we should address this.”

[00:27:09] Leah Stiegler: Right.

[00:27:10] John Reed: It's also walking around, and you get introduced to somebody and maybe able to help in another context. I think it was Dale Carnegie. Better to be interested than interesting. Clients see you as the expert on high, and when you can come in and say, “You're the expert on your workplace. You're the expert in what you do. Teach me.” That builds a lot of trust and rapport. So, it helps to cement the relationship.

You mentioned it. Interesting. Your practice also includes higher education law. Is that only within the employment context, or does the scope of that go beyond employer-employee?

[00:27:49] Leah Stiegler: It's dabbled in other areas. I mean, a lot of student claims as well, which would be more like Title IX. Because professors in different institutions, you have tenure track issues to look at. Professors also have more contractual law, so instead of maybe using a statute to bring a claim, they're suing for breach of contract in some sense. And then I've done some other interesting stuff. Workplace violence issues for college campuses and their safety teams, and what their rules are in terms of use of force on campuses. So, it has dabbled in other areas. My specialty is obviously employment law. But our firm does kind of everything, so I might be teamed up with someone on something and getting into a different area as well.

[00:28:38] John Reed: Going back to this idea of opinions and free speech in the workplace, within higher ed, are you dealing with that? Are you proactively counseling colleges, universities, higher ed?

[00:28:50] Leah Stiegler: Absolutely. I mean, anything that's happening in the world, this stuff is coming into the classroom, and I think a good professor is going to talk about the stuff. They're not just going to say, “Oh, open up your books and let's just read through this passage.” I think a good professor is going to relate what's happening in the real world to the stuff that they're teaching in class.

There are tons of lawsuits. I read Bloomberg Law every day, and you'll see professors suing for being reprimanded for anti-Semitic behavior. Or saying that their free speech rights were infringed because they spoke about Charlie Kirk in some way.

It's an interesting area because you have public and private higher ed institutions. You have this issue of balancing academic freedom, where professors should have the freedom to teach in a way that they believe a class should be taught with potential First Amendment issues, and then the college's overall reputation to be considered as well.

[00:29:54] John Reed: Going back to your example earlier of the Black manager and the four white subordinates. It brings to mind, in this context, the students, right? You were just talking about the professor as employee of the university. But when you've got students saying, “This professor did something. This professor offended me.” That's a whole different nuance. Or is it? Is it the same type of evidentiary discovery concerns that you would have in a commercial workplace?

[00:30:26] Leah Stiegler: Well, so there are different elements that you would look at it from, like statutory perspectives, but to me, I look at students similar to customers. So, the way I may be advising a higher ed institution dealing with customer complaints, right, is did the employee actually in fact engage in misconduct or is their performance actually failing? Or did the customers have their own subjective perspective that they're trying to get you to get rid of this professor? Or argue that there's some kind of real concern when it may not be that founded. So, I almost look at it as no different than a retail outlet where you'd have customers coming and buying clothing and complaining about an employee cursing and yelling in their face.

[00:31:09] John Reed: Not naming names, of course. What would you say are some of your greatest hits, the matters you've handled that you're most proud of? Maybe not because of the financial result or what have you, but that spoke to you. Where you at the end of the day said, "You know what? Good job, Leah."

[00:31:27] Leah Stiegler: That's a great question because I feel like, I do think sometimes what I think might be a really great hit, if you had the clients on the podcast, they may disagree. Because for them, they may look back on that time and say, “Oh my gosh, that was the worst time of my life.”

I'll give you an example of just a compliance issue. This wasn't even a case for purposes of a greatest hit, where a client sent me an email that said, “An employee submitted their two-week notice. Can I accept it today and just terminate them as of today?”

Simple legal answer, for any of your lawyers listening, would be like, yes. They're an at-will employee. You don't have to allow them to work out the full two weeks, even if they want to work out the full two weeks, you have that right to part ways. But I picked up the phone and called the client and was like, let's talk this through. Because you said it before, sometimes the culture of the workplace matters. Why is it that you want to accept this person's resignation today? Let's talk about not even the legal repercussions, but other employees, they may see that as kind of harsh. Maybe they're not going to put in their two weeks, and that might hurt you operationally if nobody else sees that. So, there were just some things going through my head. So, I was like, “Why do you want to do this?” That was my question.

Well, we dug into it, John, and it turns out— this was a bank— that employee had been held at gunpoint not once, but twice. And so, the employee was frustrated. There had been a robbery a couple of months earlier. And then someone had come back the week before and held someone at gunpoint and demanded some petty cash over the counter.

Maybe it was coincidental that those two things happened, but they didn't necessarily have the right security protocols in place, or they had not put them in place after the first incident. They never got workers' comp involved because they didn't see it as physical injuries. But workers' comp can cover traumatic mental health injuries in the workplace, which would probably be covered by being held at gunpoint. They never offered counseling or anything like that to employees.

And so, this was probably three years into my practice, and I realized at that moment that you, as a lawyer, need to be better about realizing your clients may not be asking you the right questions, and that the client did not ask the right questions. They didn't realize what their real problem was. And so that was a situation where once we got involved, we were able to address the culture of the workplace, workplace safety, get things lined up with workers' comp, employee counseling, workplace violence training. I mean, there were so many bigger things there. I think it was a greatest hit because, for me personally, I learned that I need to ask the right questions, because my clients may not always do that.

[00:34:09] John Reed: But I find there are a lot of lawyers, and I don't necessarily know that they're more seasoned lawyers. "I've been doing this so long, or I know so much about this that I don't have to be curious. I can finish the client's sentence for them." So, there's this danger of giving a knee-jerk reaction as opposed to saying, “Wait a second, even though I'm however many years in the practice, or my prior experience would maybe keep me from asking questions,” you've still got that curiosity driving you to do that. Is that fair?

[00:34:41] Leah Stiegler: Yeah, I think it's a good way to put it. I think a good lawyer is curious. A good lawyer doesn't always make assumptions, and a good lawyer doesn't just recite the law. If I just told the client the answer to the law in that question, which was yes, because of at-will employment, you have no obligation to let them work out, blah, blah, blah. Boring, number one. Number two, it's not getting to the heart of their issues, and it's not actually helping them improve their workplace.

I just did a one-day guest lecture class at Virginia Commonwealth University to a group of students who were in the healthcare management program, and I was telling them how to do management-side unemployment law. I explained what that was, and I said, “How many of you think I'm the bad guy?” And a lot of hands went up because these young students saw it as they've only ever been employees. None of them have been managers yet, right? They're all working at Chick-fil-A and Coldstone. And so, they're saying, “Oh, well, no. The good guy is the person who represents me as the employee.” 

But they're going into healthcare management, and so my point of the lecture was to teach them that when you get into that management level, you actually have the ability to affect the workplace and make it a better culture. And so, I see my role as an employment lawyer for the management side is to improve workplace culture, which doesn't just help one individual that I'd be representing. Instead, I'm representing a company that can impact the workplace culture and the lives of hundreds of individuals, thousands of individuals, right? Working on improving their benefits, having more stop gaps before they terminate someone, giving people severances that maybe did engage in misconduct but are going to need some pay as they transition out.

And so, by understanding people's workplace cultures and being curious about them and really getting to know them, you, as a management-side employment lawyer, can improve the lives of lots of different employees. It's better than just telling them what the law is.

[00:36:32] John Reed: We talked about the stereotype of the lawyer as hired gun. I think there's also this stereotype of, you bring in a lawyer, then we're immediately in an us vs. them adversarial relationship. As opposed to what you just said, even though I may be hired by one side, in a way, I'm actually empowering you, the employee, to help the overall workplace, as well as in this case, provision of services.

[00:36:58] Leah Stiegler: Yeah, hundred percent. It's funny you bring up adversarial nature because in union contracts, a lot of times, for arbitrations or grievance boards in the union contracts, there'll be provisions that say, if one side brings a lawyer, they have to notify the other side that within ten days they can bring their lawyer. And sometimes I'll get a call from the company and say, Hey, the other side's bringing their lawyer. I'm like, well, do you want to negotiate it out with them? Do they really need a lawyer for this? Because this doesn't seem like something that you really need to get so guns a blazing over.

And then one goes back and says, Hey, actually our lawyer is saying that they probably don't need to be there. Then the other side says, yeah, you know what, we don't need our lawyer either. And then they work it out.

But we don't want to lose job security here, John, as lawyers.

[00:37:45] John Reed: Leah's advising her clients to lawyer down, not lawyer up.

So, back to humor, not that we really ever left it. What are some of the funniest, awkward, absurd issues you've dealt with? Again, no naming names.

[00:37:59] Leah Stiegler: This is a fun case. So, a situation where the administrator for a retirement community— the administrator's kind of like the CEO in a long-term care or a retirement community— was in a relationship with the chief nursing officer. And so theoretically, the chief nursing officer was a subordinate. Their offices were right next to each other. Eventually, the board of the organization had directed the administrator to terminate the chief nursing officer. They wanted a different strategic direction and all that. Well, she ended up suing for sexual harassment and claiming that the whole time she was sexually harassed by the administrator. Our position was that this was a consensual relationship. It may not have been a healthy workplace dynamic, but it wasn't unlawful for two people to engage in consensual sex and sexting and all that.

So, we had some interesting facts that came about it. Well, one, they installed a door between their offices so they could go within each other's office without having to come out into the hallway. So, we said like, “That's clear consensual, right?” And she said, “No. Well, I didn't sign off on that door. He did, right? The construction document says he did,” and his whole thing was like she was the one pushing for the door.

There were other allegations that she sent him sexy photos of herself. When we deposed her and got to know her, I was like, these photos are from three or four years ago. Because her weight had definitely changed, and in my subjective opinion, I thought she looked better three or four years ago. She's trying to show off to him herself and her sexy lingerie in her younger days, when her body looked a little different.

The other attorney, though, on the other side—give him credit—had a much better argument. The other attorney said, “Well, actually when he was asking for sexy photos, she didn't want to take photos of herself. So what she did was she just went into her phone, her repository of sexy photos,” which I also learned that apparently a lot of people have a repository of sexy photos on their phone, “and she just pulled out old photos and sent them to him because she didn't want to get off the couch and do anything for him because it was quid pro quo; it wasn't consensual. And I was like, dang, that's a really good argument. You know, like, that is a good one.

We ended up being able to defeat her claims though, or basically prove that it was consensual because the roommate that she had lived with, they had gotten into a fight and was willing to testify on our side and signed an affidavit basically saying that every time he came over to pick her up, she would have the roommate stall so she could go shave her legs and get ready. And to circle back to our whole dating thing, you don't shave your legs for someone that you're not interested in. Because you'd want to be like the hairy beast if you were trying to get someone to stop coming after you. So that was a pretty clear-cut defense that she shaved her legs, judge. She clearly was attracted.

[00:41:08] John Reed: The Sasquatch defense.

[00:41:10] Leah Stiegler: Yes, there you go. The Sasquatch Defense in the employment world. Right? There are just some things that juries know. 

[00:41:18] John Reed: I got a scenario for you. Let's say you have this client, let's call them, I don't know, Astronomer.

[00:41:24] Leah Stiegler: Okay.

[00:41:24] John Reed: And it's July 17th or 18th, and there just was a concert a day or two before. And the board chair calls you about a Kiss Cam incident. You know where I'm going. How would you have tackled that situation? It kind of sounds like this other situation was close, but I'm really curious how you, Leah Stiegler, you and Coldplay, how would you handle this?

[00:41:45] Leah Stiegler: So, the board calls me, and I've got the HR director and the CEO on Kiss Cam?

[00:41:51] John Reed: Yeah. Hypothetically,

[00:41:52] Leah Stiegler: In case this hypothetically came up in a workplace. This is a good one. In terms of advising the board, who is the client at this point, we need a little bit more information. And whether I would call it an investigation or not, and you'd have to be strategic, right? The last thing I'd want to do is have the CEO interviewed, and then two days later interview the HR person. And by that point, they've had the chance to talk and get their stories straight.

So, I'd probably say you're going to set up two interviews. You're going to call them out of the blue, don't give them any heads-up notice, and basically ask them what happened, their side of the story. Obviously, we have the Kiss Cam footage, so we have enough to know what we already believe. Right? And a company can look at that footage and may not have to do anything further. 

So, let's say they say there's no good excuse on either side. It is what it is. It's exactly what we're looking at. We have to consider not just legal implications because having an affair is not unlawful in the workplace. It's not. It's not unlawful. The real question is, how does this impact your culture? How does this impact your PR? Obviously, it made some news.

And then, from a disciplinary side of things, what about the judgment of these two individuals? HR and the CEO are two individuals that you would imagine would have the utmost discretion and would probably be enforcing certain policies in the workplace and dealing with conflicts of interest and stuff. And so it would be really hard for HR to go down to the manufacturing floor and tell a supervisor and a subordinate that they need to either let the supervisor go or move them into two different departments because they're engaged in an inappropriate relationship and there's an appearance of conflict of interest or favoritism, when the HR director has been knowingly sleeping with the CEO.

I think you'd be looking at it from everything of how do you address the performance and discipline here to the workplace culture, and also what kind of precedent are you setting for issues that have to come up in the future.

[00:43:58] John Reed: Have you ever had occasion where you had to work with a PR firm, crisis counsel? Whether that's the internal marketing people at the company or an outside publicist?

[00:44:09] Leah Stiegler: Yeah, absolutely. We work a lot with a company called Integer. Monica Smith runs it. And I can't tell you enough how much it comes up that it is important that companies have a crisis response or PR response because everything is on the internet. Everything is on Instagram, TikTok, the news, and there's a lot of fake news out there. We're even seeing needs to have PR responses to someone who maybe takes a video of you, John, and makes an AI video of you saying some derogatory things and posting it online. And then the response has to be, “That's fake. That's fake. That's AI.” How do you defeat that image when someone may be scrolling through and see that and be like, “Oh my gosh, the head of Sticky Lawyers just said this online." Right? And it's completely false. So yeah, the PR aspect of things is real.

[00:44:57] John Reed: Fabulous segue. Artificial intelligence. In terms of the workplace, is this the new frontier? Is this the new battleground when it comes to workplace issues?

[00:45:08] Leah Stiegler: One area for certain is employee use of shadow AI. So, maybe employees using AI tools that the company is unaware of and the stuff they're putting in there, or what access do those tools have to the company's information? I think it strengthens the need for employers to institute workplace policies and to have stronger IT departments that understand this new frontier, and also can figure out, do we have a concern with a potential breach? Not just like a data breach because somebody put a bunch of payroll information into an AI system, but maybe a breach in terms of is what an employee put into an AI system, a breach of contract, or as a lawyer, did you just breach your ethical rules by disclosing confidential information? Concerned about that.

Obviously concerned about job security. I would say fewer and fewer clients reach out and say, Hey, can you help us draft a parental leave policy? We have employees that are living in four different states. And now what they're doing is they're putting directives into ChatGPT and asking ChatGPT to put together parental leave policies.

[00:46:14] John Reed: Last big question. If you could give every employer and employee one piece of advice on how to maintain a healthy workplace culture and an employer-employee relationship and stay out of trouble, what would it be or what would they be? If you have different advice for either side.

[00:46:31] Leah Stiegler: Give people second chances. I say that in the employment context, not in the dating world, though. If you've got a red flag early on, you drop that sucker, okay? And you part ways.

But in the employment world, nobody shows up as their best self every single day. People may be going through divorces. They may have lost a pet. They may be struggling to understand something, or they may not be getting along with their manager. Maybe they haven't slept for four days. Or they're dealing with addiction. I mean, who knows, right? 

Overall, they're a good human who can perform well. They need a few extra tools. They need some time. And it's going to be more costly to an organization to terminate someone every time they have one misstep or they're not their best selves and then go and hire someone new and train that person and get them ready to go, versus being empathetic and working with people. So, I think giving people second, third, fourth chances and really helping people be successful. Because I think that's what we would all want for ourselves.

[00:47:31] John Reed: And that goes the other way, too. If you're an employee, know that your manager, your superior, is human, correct?

[00:47:37] Leah Stiegler: Right. That's it. That is perfect. I love that you added that.

[00:47:41] John Reed: Well, let's wrap up with this. You talk about "imperfect humans" at work, and I think that's such a distinct and accurate way to frame what you do and who we are. We're all imperfect. So, Leah, thank you for making human imperfection fun. I really enjoyed this conversation and, dare I say, our witty banter as well.

[00:48:00] Leah Stiegler: Good. Well, I hope if I insulted anyone or that if anyone thinks you should be canceled for having me on and saying my strong opinions, that they recognize that we are just imperfect humans trying to do this.

[00:48:13] John Reed: And I will be sure to put your email address in the episode notes so people can contact you directly.

[00:48:18] Leah Stiegler: So, they can send all their bad feedback to me. Good feedback to you. Got it.

[00:48:21] John Reed: Exactly, exactly. Well, Leah, thank you so much for sharing your time and your humor with me today.

[00:48:26] Leah Stiegler: Of course. Thanks so much for having me, John. I appreciate it. 

[00:48:31] John Reed: And to you listening, thank you for spending time with us, too. If you enjoyed this conversation, I'd really appreciate it if you would please subscribe to Sticky Lawyers wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps make sure you don't miss future episodes. And if you have a minute, leaving a rating or review really does help other people, lawyers and lay people alike, discover the show. Even just a few words about what you found interesting or useful makes a difference.

Until next time. I'm John Reed, and you've been listening to Sticky Lawyers.