How to Review a Termination for Legal Risk with Eigent

How it works

1. Run the review before the termination conversation is scheduled. A review run afterwards documents a decision instead of informing it.
2. Give the employee's role, tenure, work location, and the stated reason — then give the recent history too: leave taken, complaints filed, accommodation requests, any protected activity in the last 12 months.
3. Eigent returns a risk rating and tells you which of three things is true: you can proceed, you need more documentation first, or you need outside counsel before going further.
4. For a RIF, run the disparate impact check on the selection criteria before the list is finalised — not after names have been shared with managers.
5. Once the review clears, use the same session to draft the termination letter and severance agreement so they match the reasoning you just validated.

More prompts to try

• /employment-legal:termination-review — We are planning a RIF affecting 12 employees across engineering and operations. Review the selection criteria [paste] for disparate impact risk. Do we trigger WARN Act obligations, and what severance and COBRA notices are required, by when?
• /employment-legal:termination-review — Review this severance agreement [paste] before we send it. Check that the release covers all claims in [state], ADEA/OWBPA compliance if the employee is over 40, the consideration period, and the revocation window. Flag anything that would make the release unenforceable.
• The employee is in California and we are terminating on Friday. Walk me through the final pay timing, accrued PTO, and every notice we are required to hand over that day.
• Draft the termination letter and the manager's talking points for this decision, in plain language, with nothing in either that contradicts the documented reason.

How to use

Run this first, every time, for involuntary separations only — voluntary resignations do not belong here. Always give the work location: at-will protections, final pay timing, and WARN Act thresholds vary significantly by state, and California requires final pay on the day of termination for involuntary separations. Disclose the awkward facts rather than omitting them; a review that does not know about the FMLA leave or the complaint filed six weeks ago will clear a termination that should have been stopped. When the rating comes back as anything other than proceed, treat the listed steps as prerequisites, not suggestions. Escalate to outside employment counsel when the employee has an active complaint or leave, when the termination follows protected activity within the past 12 months, when a group layoff involves employees over 40, or when the employee has already retained an attorney.

Expected output

A risk rating — proceed, proceed with caution, or do not proceed without counsel — plus the high-risk flags behind it (retaliation exposure, protected class issues, procedural gaps, WARN Act triggers), the specific steps to complete before proceeding, and for severance, an enforceability check against the jurisdiction's requirements.

Limitations

• The review is only as good as the history you disclose. Omitted leave, complaints, or accommodation requests produce a clearance that will not hold up.
• Final pay timing, notice requirements, and WARN thresholds are state-specific. State the work location explicitly if it is outside your practice profile.
• A proceed rating is decision support, not legal approval. Terminations following protected activity, and any group layoff, should be reviewed by employment counsel before the conversation.