Lorna Griffin Law Offices, PLLC

08/12/2026

That look on my face? We recently settled two cases for clients who spent a long time in limbo. After months of uncertainty, they finally had resolution, they could exhale, and begin putting the case behind them. There is something deeply satisfying about helping a client reach that point.

Most of us believe in the same quiet bargain with our employers. Show up, work hard, do it right, and you'll be treated fairly. Then someone gets fired for reporting a problem or pushed out after they got sick. The lost paycheck hurts, but what really knocks the wind out of people is learning the other side never held up their end.

Neither case saw a courtroom and many employment cases never do. Sometimes a trial is necessary, but a trial is not always a flex. Dragging a case out for two years or more costs everyone time, energy, and resources. And a jury is a coin flip for both sides.

Settling means you decide what fair looks like instead of handing that decision over to a jury.

Justice doesn't only happen in a courtroom. The best outcome is the one that makes a hardworking person whole again.

06/10/2026

Taking medical leave? Protect your job, not just your health.

Most employees pour everything into recovery and skip the simple steps that protect them if their employer pushes back later. Here's what to do before, during, and after taking medical leave:

1. Put everything in writing, start to finish. A dated email proves what you asked for and when. Do it for your initial leave request, your return date, any restrictions your doctor sets, and any accommodation you might need. Verbal requests fade fast, but written ones stay.

2. Give notice the right way. If your leave is foreseeable, like a scheduled surgery, FMLA generally asks for thirty days notice. If it is sudden, give notice as soon as you reasonably can. Either way, follow your employer's normal call-in process and leave procedures.

3. Know which law protects you. FMLA gives job-protected leave to eligible employees, generally those who have worked at least a year for an employer with fifty or more employees. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an employee with a disability can request medical leave as a reasonable accommodation, even when FMLA does not apply. The two laws can overlap, so it helps to know which one fits your situation.

4. Handle medical certification carefully and keep copies of everything. Your employer can ask for medical certification supporting your leave, but it cannot demand your full medical history. Give what the law requires, then save your request, your employer's replies, your recent performance reviews, and every message about your leave. Contemporaneous records beat memory every time.

5. Watch what happens when you return. Retaliation for taking protected leave is illegal, and timing often matters. A surprise bad performance review that lines up with your recent leave is worth documenting. And never sign a severance agreement or release without reading it carefully and, if you can, get advice from an employment attorney first.

Worth keeping handy, should you need this in the future, and worth sharing if you think it could help someone.

05/29/2026

I recently worked on a free resource for Texas lawyers, published through the Law Practice Management Committee of the State Bar of Texas.

It's a practical handbook on using AI for social media marketing. The handbook walks through building a content plan, using AI prompts to draft posts, staying compliant with Texas advertising rules, and keeping firm branding consistent, all designed to fit into a busy solo or small firm practice.

AI can help Texas lawyers maintain a consistent, professional social media presence without adding time to a demanding practice. Here's how.

05/04/2026

https://youtu.be/_iKzgDEs8KY?si=p3GnBGV7Svtsb468
I had a great time sitting down with Zane Myers on the Trustcast Show to talk about something I care deeply about, ensuring employees understand their rights in the workplace.

Zane is a thoughtful, prepared interviewer who asked exactly the right questions, and I appreciated the space he gave to topics that don’t always get airtime: what at-will employment actually means in Texas, why the sequence preceding a termination matters more than most people realize, and what employees are quietly giving up when they sign a severance or noncompete agreement.

We also talked about what happens when an employee comes back from medical leave and lands on a performance improvement plan ("PIP"), and why that timing is rarely a coincidence to someone who spent 16 years on the employer side of these decisions before going to law school.

If you or someone you know has questions about a termination, a noncompete or severance agreement, or a workplace situation that just does not feel right, I hope this conversation is a useful starting point.

04/27/2026

You reported something at work and now everything feels different. Is this retaliation?

It might be. But there is a difference between plain vanilla retaliation and the unlawful kind, and that distinction matters.

3 things that feel like unlawful retaliation but may not be:

1. A sudden shift in how you are treated. Left off emails, excluded from meetings, passed over for a promotion. It feels like punishment and it may be. But unlawful retaliation means the action followed a legally protected activity, like reporting discrimination, requesting a medical accommodation, taking FMLA leave, or opposing harassment. Reporting someone's bad conduct usually does not necessarily meet the bar.

2. A manager who makes your life difficult. Cold, critical, impossible to please. If that followed a personality conflict or a complaint, even to HR, that does not qualify as protected activity. It may certainly be retaliation, but not the unlawful kind.

3. A decision that just feels wrong. Texas is an at-will state. Employers can make arbitrary, frustrating, petty, even unethical decisions and still be within the law. A terrible manager is not necessarily an unlawful one.

If what you reported involved discrimination based on age, race, religion, disability/ medical leave, and/ or gender, and what followed was a demotion, pay cut, or termination, that may be worth a closer look.

Whatever your situation, document everything and consult with an attorney that handles employment law. Most people do not know where they stand until they talk it through.