(Hybrid Event) Psychological Issues in the Workplace 2022

With unprecedented speed, the pandemic re-shaped the workplace, altered the expectations of employees and employers, and created new types of legal claims. Employers face an array of additional obligations while employees and employers alike cope with challenges that change day to day. Rapid change often gives rise to emotional reactions, some foreseeable, others unanticipated. The psychological factors behind the creation, litigation and resolution of workplace disputes are impossible to ignore.

This program will address in a clear and pragmatic way key employment law issues at the intersection of law and psychology. A wide array of claims, from harassment, discrimination and retaliation to workplace safety and disability accommodation, are profoundly impacted by the range of emotions that motivate employees and employers. This program brings together a representative of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in-house counsel, prominent practitioners from the employee rights and management bars, and psychiatrists and psychologists to address the creation and litigation of employment law claims unique to the pandemic and its aftermath. They will identify key legal issues and ways in which psychological factors influence the employees, managers and employers engaged in conflict. Speakers will transcend jargon, identify practical ways of working together, and describe effective strategies to avoid, pursue and resolve litigation. 

Additionally, this program will address the ethical considerations that arise when employment lawyers and mental health professionals are aligned or adverse during litigation. Speakers will discuss inquiries about mental disabilities and medical records during discovery and requests for mental examinations of employees. Our legal and psychiatric experts will consider the ethical and professional responsibilities of attorneys and mental health professionals when they pursue or protect sensitive psychiatric information.

What You Will Learn

Upon completing the program, the attendee will be able to:

• Understand the EEOC’s and plaintiffs’ bar’s perspective on employment law claims created during the pandemic and the ways in which litigation of familiar claims has changed
• Assess the role that psychological factors play in the genesis, pursuit and defense of workplace discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims
• Recognize misunderstandings and stereotypes about the impact of age and cognitive decline on older workers
• Develop strategic insight into sex plus age discrimination claims involving mid-life to older women and employer defenses to such claims
• Engage in discovery of sensitive psychiatric information about employees aware of ethical guidance and constraints imposed during litigation
• Utilize the rules of professional conduct to guide work with treating and forensic mental health professionals

Featured JAMS Speakers:

• Stephen P. Sonnenberg, Esq.
• Hon. James "Jay" C. Francis IV (Ret.)