Employment law is complex, so employers with dedicated legal teams have an inherent advantage over workers with no legal training. Hiring a talented and reputable workplace discrimination attorney is the most effective way to level the playing field, but some may attempt to undergo this complicated process without professional assistance, believing they can learn enough about employment law to handle their employment claim successfully.

Unfortunately, spending time learning the many nuances of law takes time away from other responsibilities. Consulting with a skilled employment attorney is advised to support you through this process. You may be unsure, however, if you have a legally actionable claim to reach out to an attorney to discuss. This is entirely understandable, as workplace discrimination violations can take a staggering variety of forms in the real world.

Some of these examples of workplace discrimination in the real world should be useful as you start to sort the ins and outs of filing a workplace discrimination claim:

• Unequal Pay – Let’s say you begin working at a large warehouse that hires and onboards employees in batches rather than individually. Six months later, you learn that everyone else you attended orientation with is making $25 per hour while you’re still on your starting rate of $20. This is obviously unfair, but many people don’t realize that it can also be downright illegal.So much reporting has been done on the well-known pay gaps between men and women or between workers of particular races that many people have become desensitized to the injustice and don’t even realize that unequal compensation practices–as commonplace as they may be–can be proven to be in violation of the law in many instances.
  
  

  If you discover that colleagues with the same workload, skill set, and seniority are being paid significantly more (or less) than you, it may be possible to take legal action against the employer.
  
  

• Hiring Bias – It’s also crucial to remember that your rights as a working person begin before you’re ever actually employed. Employers are also legally required to be non-discriminatory during their hiring and recruiting processes.For example, a highly qualified woman interviews at a tech startup on the same day as five male peers who lack her extensive background, but then she learns that she was the only candidate who was not called back for the second round of interviews. If her attorney can establish that her gender played a role in this decision, legal action can be taken.
  
  
• Harassment – An Asian man working on an assembly line at a majority-white workplace meets all quotas and excels at all areas of their job based on metrics and data collected by the company itself, and yet finds himself the target of persistent degrading comments or other unwelcome conduct from their supervisors.This can encompass anything from outright racial slurs to derogatory “harmless jokes” that never seem to end. If you are the victim of a hostile work environment and believe it is due to a protected characteristic such as your race, age, gender, or disability status, we can help you fight back with legal action.
  
  
• Denial of Accommodations – Thanks to the landmark federal Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, differently abled workers have a legal right to request reasonable accommodations from an employer. Examples include an amputee working in a kitchen who needs an exception to the restaurant owner’s “no sitting while on the clock” policy or an autistic employee who can only perform their duties efficiently if they are allowed to wear noise-canceling headphones.Note that “reasonable accommodation” can also refer to protected religious practices, pregnancies, and other situations, as well as short- and long-term disabilities. If you have been fired, harassed, or otherwise retaliated against for requesting legally protected accommodations at work, you may have a claim against your employer.
  
  
• Retaliation – Let’s say someone complains to their company’s HR department about an upper-level manager making racially insensitive comments to them at work, and instead of addressing the issue, the company removes this worker’s shifts from the upcoming schedule. This could be an example of illegal workplace retaliation.When you file a complaint or participate in some other protected workplace activity (such as reporting safety violations or participating in a union), you have legal protections against retaliation in the form of demotion, termination, or ostracism.