Our attorneys

Focus

Wrongful termination, discrimination, retaliation

Admitted

Missouri, Kansas

Helen represents employees who have been fired, demoted, or pushed out for reasons the law doesn't allow. She has practiced employment law in Kansas City since 2004 and founded the firm with Thomas Caldwell in 2013. Most of her clients come to her in the first days after losing a job, and she starts every matter the same way: a written timeline, built with the client, of what happened and when. She thinks most cases are won or lost on details people forget by the second month, so she writes them down in the first week. She tells clients early, and plainly, when she thinks a case is strong and when she doesn't.

Focus

Wage and hour claims

Admitted

Missouri, Kansas

Thomas represents workers who weren't paid what they earned: unpaid overtime, misclassification as contractors, off-the-clock work, and withheld final pay. Before law school he spent six years running a warehouse crew, and he still reads a timesheet the way a supervisor does. He co-founded the firm in 2013. His work is mostly arithmetic and patience: rebuilding months of hours from pay stubs, schedules, and text messages until the number holds up. When several people at one workplace share the same problem, he represents them together.

Focus

Severance and separation agreements

Admitted

Missouri, Kansas

Renata reviews and negotiates severance and separation agreements for people leaving a job, from hourly staff to senior managers with equity and non-competes. She joined the firm in 2016 after several years drafting employment agreements for businesses, which is why she reads a release the way the company's lawyer wrote it. Most of her matters move on short deadlines, so she works fast and in writing. Her clients get a plain summary of what the agreement gives, what it takes, and what she would ask to change. Sometimes her advice is to sign it as it stands, and she says so.

Focus

Employer advice and compliance

Admitted

Missouri, Kansas

Marcus advises Kansas City employers, most of them businesses without in-house counsel, on hiring, discipline, terminations, investigations, and policies. He joined the firm in 2018. Having spent his first years in practice on the employee side, he knows what a fired employee's lawyer looks for in a personnel file, and he helps employers make decisions that hold up when someone does. He works best before the hard meeting, not after it. When a complaint, an agency charge, or a lawsuit does arrive, he represents the employer through it.