Dan Chammas – How To Create An Employee Handbook

In addition to his work in litigating and resolving employment disputes for his clients, Dan Chammas also works closely with a number of companies on an array of employment issues, such as creating processes for terminating employees and drafting employee handbooks. The latter is a challenge that all employers must face, as poor employee handbooks will fail to provide people with the information they need about the company and also means the company itself will struggle to nail down company rules and processes that employees must abide by. If you are new to writing employee handbooks, try to keep the following tips in mind.

Don’t Use Jargon

There will be sections of your employee handbook that relate to employment and labor law, which can make it tempting to slip into a more technical tone. While this may look impressive on paper, it will often be difficult to understand for employees. Your aim should be to make the handbook as concise and accessible as possible, not only because this benefits your employees but also because it will provide little room for misinterpretations, which can benefit the company in cases of employee dispute.

Be Conversational

Remember that your employee handbook is a major part of the introductory materials that people will receive when they are hired. As such, you should aim to keep the tone fairly casual, as this will help new hires feel welcomed by the company. Use words like “we” and “our” when describing what your company does and its goals, as this creates a sense of belonging and camaraderie.

Define Workplace Rules

You need to set the standard for what employees can expect from the workplace and how they are expected to act as early as possible. Draft a set of rules that all employees need to follow and have an attorney go over it to make sure you have everything covered. Avoid being too harsh with these rules, as you may negatively affect workplace morale if you are too strict. Also make it a point to have employees sign a copy of this document and make sure you are quick to update it and have it re-signed if any of the rules change.

Consider Ethics

Each company will have a standard of ethics that it expects employees to abide by. It can often be difficult to describe this ethical code on paper, so the best way to handle the issue is to create hypothetical examples of ethical quandaries that can be related to real-life scenarios that employees may find themselves in. Consider placing questions in the handbook about these created scenarios and use the answers to educate your employees about ethical issues and how they should act to properly represent the company and themselves.

Dan Chammas is an experienced attorney with a focus on employment and labor law.

Dan Chammas – How to Conduct a Lawful Job Interview

Dan Chammas is an employment lawyer with considerable expertise in California employment law. He has been victorious in a number of class action suits, in which he defended many organizations against claims of discrimination, wrongful termination, unpaid wages, and much more. He has also published many articles on employment law, and frequently advises his clients on how to conduct their business lawfully. This starts with the hiring process, and adhering to legal requirements when conducting job searches and interviews.

When asking questions in an interview, it is important to consider discrimination laws and think about things from an interviewee’s perspective. There are many things that you are not allowed to take into consideration when making hiring decisions, including race, gender, religion, family status, and much more. If a topic is not relevant to the hiring process, stay away from any questions about it, or phrase the questions in a way that allows you to obtain the information that you need professionally. For example, ask if the applicant is over the age of 18 instead of directly asking how old they are to avoid being perceived as ageist.

Another extremely important thing to be aware of when discussing the job is any promises you are making. Do not make any promises unless you are absolutely sure that the company can keep them, otherwise, there may be basis for a lawsuit. It is especially important not to discuss the company’s financial future. Dan Chammas is an expert in employment law and discrimination policies in California.

 

Dan Chammas – California Law Requires All Employers to Offer Paid Sick Leave

Dan Chammas is a California-based lawyer who has worked on a variety of important projects and cases throughout his career. An important legislation change that he has been working with is the requirement of all California employers, including non-profit organizations, to offer sick leave to their employees. Known as the California Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act, it was passed in 2014, and was put into effect on July 1st, 2015.

Dan Chammas

Prior to the passage of this law, there were many small companies and organizations that were not required to offer their employees paid sick leave. However, under the new legislation, virtually all employers are affected, with no loopholes. There are a few very small exceptions, but they only apply to a select minority of employers, and cannot be used as a way to get around paying employees the family leave that they need. The law even covers employers who are based in another state, but have some employees working in California. If you live in California, but telecommute with a company that is based in another state, you are still covered under this law.

The main provision of this law is that for every thirty hours worked, the employer must provide them with one hour of sick leave. This law only applies after an employee has been working for a full thirty-day month. Employers may limit the amount of sick pay to a total of three days (or twenty-four working hours) each year. The sick days usually must roll over into the next year if they go unused. However, this roll-over does not apply if the employer provides the full amount of sick leave at the beginning of each year, instead of waiting until the employee has worked the requisite amount of hours to ‘earn’ it. Employers are also not required to provide their employees with more than six days, or 48 hours, worth of sick leave in roll-over time.

During the sick leave period, the employee must be provided with their standard, contracted hourly or salaried rate of compensation. If the employee regularly receives extra pay through commissions, this must be factored into their sick leave compensation. Sick leave can be used for a variety of different reasons, including preventative health care, or care of a family member. If the employee is terminated for any reason, the employer is not required to compensate them with sick leave.

All employers are legally required to provide written notice to their employees regarding their sick leave rights, usually through posters or signage that is displayed prominently in the workplace common areas. Employers must also keep detailed records of sick leave for at least three years. As a lawyer, Dan Chammas helps his clients navigate the ins and outs of paid sick leave.

Attorney Dan Chammas Works With International Scope

In countries like Canada, Attorney Dan Chammas is especially cognizant of the use of terms, as Canadian ‘labor law’ refers to unionized work environments there, and the ‘employment law’ label is attached to non-unionized employees and their issues. Of such nuances are effective advocacy made, and Chammas is deeply informed in the employment laws and regulations of a variety of international countries where his clients have work relationships and where they do business. Chammas is also backed up by the depth of knowledge and experience at the law firm of Venable LLP, which brings its formidable team to bear on behalf of clients.

In China, the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Employment Contracts and the Labor Law of People’s Republic of China are the basic regulations of employer/employee relationships. The government controls the All China Federation of Trade Unions, the only labor union, and strikes are discouraged despite provision given for staging strikes and entering bargaining. In France, work weeks have come to be limited to 35 hours, and the minimum wage has also increased by 25%. French employers struggle within the strict limitations of labor laws there, and litigators like Dan Chammas find the challenges of dispute resolutions have an entirely different set of parameters in France. AT the other end of the spectrum, India’s labor regulations have been criticized for their unnecessary complexity, over the top flexibility and ancient origins. Iran’s employment practices do not comply with even basic conventions of the International Labor Organization regarding right to organize, collective bargaining or the abolition of child labor, and are still based in ancient precepts.

Mexican labor laws provide right to strike and organize in theory, but in practice independent unions find it impossible to organize in Mexico. Swedish workplace issues follow a unique model of self-regulation through labor market parties, setting working hours, minimum wage, right to overtime compensation and other regulations for workers. Civil standardization of labor laws in Switzerland basically renders all employees governed by one central set of regulations. The United Kingdom has expanded its employment law to suit the needs of its membership in the European Union and the demand for equality, and Statutes, Statutory Regulations and Case Law provide the main source of regulation of employer/employee relationships.

In the United States, experienced litigators like Dan Chammas must be familiar with the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees the right to form unions and initiate collective bargaining and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act which prohibits employment discrimination based on age 40 or older. In addition, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination by both public and private employers, labor organizations, training programs and employment agencies on the basis of sex, age, or race.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_law

 

Business Awards

• Selected for inclusion in Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars Edition, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2014

Dan Chammas Attends 2nd Best Law School in U.S.

Stanford Law School is ranked second best law school in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, and has been ranked in the top three consistently since 1992.  Stanford enrolls over 500 students who are working toward their Doctor of Jurisprudence, and Stanford also offers four other advanced legal degrees: Master of Laws (LL. M), Master of Studies in Law (M.S.L.), Master of Science of Law (J.S.M.) and the Doctor of the Science of Law (J.S.D.).
Annual fall enrollment is around 180 students, which renders Stanford the smallest student body of any law school in the top fourteen of the United States.  Stanford Law School also offers eleven legal clinics including a nationally renowned Supreme Court litigation clinic.  1999 graduate Dan Chammas joined the finest law alumni in the nation upon attaining his Doctor of Jurisprudence, including late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, retired Chief Justice of California Ronald M. George and retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Dan Chammas

Stanford University’s Law department was established in 1893 with the hiring of two law professors, former United States President Benjamin Harrison and Nathan Abbott.  Over the next 7 years Abbott headed up the law program and acquired additional faculty members.  From its beginnings Stanford Law was unique in its admittance of women, Hispanics, Chinese and Japanese students.  The law department of Stanford relocated to an Inner Quadrangle location in 1900, where its first law library was established along with a three-year curriculum and a charter membership in the Association of American Law Schools.  The future Stanford Law School of Dan Chammas was initiated by Stanford’s Board of Trustees in 1908 who changed the name from a law department to a Law School.  Stanford Law School was accredited by the American Bar Association in 1923.

Stanford Law School would relocate twice more, to the outer quadrangle in the 1940’s and then to its current location in the Crown Quadrangle in the 1970’s.  The national reputation of Stanford Law was elevated by the first publication of the Stanford Law Review, and the decision to limit enrollment to keep Stanford an exclusive bastion of law academia was made.  Various student organizations emerged during this period, including the Women of Stanford Law, the Stanford Chicano Law Student Association, the Environmental Law Society, and the Stanford Public Interest Foundation.  Committed to diversity, Stanford University today includes racial minorities as about a fifth of its student body, and its Law School is considered one of the ten best in the nation for minority students.

Dan Chammas benefited from curriculum innovations with access to courses in law technology, intellectual property law, environmental law and international law introduced in the 1990’s as these legal fields emerged.

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