I paid for a consultation with this firm seeking strategic legal advice regarding an intense…read moreworkplace dispute involving documented manager misconduct and severe retaliation. Unfortunately, the counsel I received from Nicholas Woodfield was incredibly shallow, and his conduct was entirely unprofessional.
When discussing an escalation strategy regarding corporate misconduct, the attorney gave me narrow, bare-minimum technical advice regarding harassment definitions, even incorrectly referencing a non-existent "Employment Rights Act of 1964" instead of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. When I tried to interject to let him know I was already fully aware of these basic concepts, he cut me off and said, "Just let me finish."
He completely failed to address the broader context of retaliation law, temporal proximity, or the legal leverage a documented paper trail creates against wrongful termination. Furthermore, his analysis completely missed the critical distinction between a narrow statutory lawsuit and corporate governance liability. He failed to see how a meticulously documented paper trail of executive misconduct--such as a CEO manufacturing a fraudulent performance record, prioritizing manual volume over operational utility, and abusing corporate channels to interrogate an employee--creates massive, direct liability for a Board of Directors.
Instead of recognizing that a broken internal HR chain and an erratic executive constitute a severe fiduciary and operational risk to an organization, he focused entirely on a retail courtroom vacuum. When discussing presenting my documentation to the Board, he gave a lazy, fear-based warning that the Board could simply turn around and fire me. Yet he completely failed to analyze the other side of that equation: what legal and corporate-governance consequences could arise once the Board was formally placed on notice of documented executive misconduct and then failed to adequately address it. He never walked me through the potential significance of Board knowledge, subsequent retaliation, corporate ratification, negligent retention or supervision, or potential fiduciary-duty implications. Those were precisely the kinds of legal risks and leverage I was paying an employment attorney to identify.
What makes this lack of analysis even more appalling is the attorney's own published professional record. His firm highlights his representation of Donna Jackson in a major retaliation case resulting in a restored $650,000 jury verdict, involving adverse employment actions after an employee reported discrimination. His firm also highlights his representation of Matthew Drake in an appellate whistleblower case establishing, under the federal Whistleblower Protection Act, that a whistleblower did not need to prove an actual violation of law where the applicable reasonable-belief standard was satisfied.
This attorney had substantial professional experience with both retaliation following internal reporting and the important distinction between proving an underlying legal violation and determining whether a disclosure can nevertheless receive legal protection. Yet he emphasized that the Board could fire me and that the underlying conduct I described was not illegal, without meaningfully analyzing whether my existing or contemplated disclosures could qualify for protection under the laws applicable to my situation. The sophistication reflected in his own published case history was completely absent from the consultation I paid for.
To make matters worse, he interrogated me with completely uncalled-for questions like "Why do you think he is acting like this?" and "Why are you working there?"--subtly shifting the burden onto me rather than analyzing the documented facts. He even trivialized documented executive misconduct by reducing it to a personal claim - saying that it seems that my dad and I simply "don't get along." He capped it off saying that I "don't have to work there." I did not pay for a legal consultation to be psychoanalyzed and given excuses for executive misconduct.
During our call, I directly told the attorney that he hurt me and was out of line. Instead of taking accountability, he completely dismissed my pain and followed it up with a fake apology.
I paid for professional, comprehensive analysis of employee rights and corporate liability, but instead received a complete lack of thoroughness and a total absence of professional empathy. The consultation I had with Mr. Woodfield was a complete waste of time and money. If you are looking for an advocate who will thoroughly analyze your situation and treat you with basic professional respect, look elsewhere.