Scott Steinberg · Consultant, Analyst and Business Strategist
Separation, discrimination, HR and employment disputes may generate an unusual amount of documentary evidence and an unusual amount of disagreement about what the evidence shows. Performance systems, communication records and business justifications all leave traces that can be read carefully or read selectively. A consultant to 3000+ organizations, Scott Steinberg reads them carefully.
Expert reports, declarations, deposition and trial testimony on employment, HR, discrimination, wrongful termination, performance evidence and systems records, business justification analysis, separation practice, replacement and restructuring evidence, impact, etc.
Our HR consultants and employment SMEs cover a wide range of topics and legal matters pertaining to wrongful termination, discrimination, workplace policy and more.
Performance systems hold review histories, goal records, rating distributions and the timing of every entry and edit.
Reports look at areas like what that record actually shows, including whether documentation patterns changed shortly before a separation and how ratings compared across the team.
Messaging platforms, calendars, access logs and document systems together reconstruct what happened in a workplace with considerable precision.
Testimony addresses what those records support and where an inference exceeds what the data will bear, which cuts both ways.
Where an organization cites performance, restructuring or business need, that explanation is testable against its own records and against what it did afterward.
Research examines whether the stated justification is consistent with the contemporaneous record and with subsequent conduct.
What happened to the role afterward is documented: whether it was eliminated, backfilled, retitled or split, and on what timeline.
Testimony assembles that record from postings, organizational data and hiring activity following the separation.
Sectors and organization types differ in how separations are customarily handled: notice, process, documentation and transition arrangements.
Work looks at convention for that role level and sector, without opining on legal adequacy.
Post-separation matters involve reference practice, statements made to colleagues or clients, and how a departure was characterized internally and externally.
SMEs and KOLs reference convention in the sector and the practical effect of particular characterizations on someone's market.
Assessing impact requires market evidence about comparable roles, realistic search timelines and what the person's trajectory looked like before the separation.
Testimony supplies those market inputs, which a damages or economic expert builds the calculation on.
How comparable organizations handle performance management and separation provides the baseline against which conduct is assessed.
Insight establishes that baseline for the sector and period and characterizes the conduct at issue against it.
Performance systems, communication platforms and access records hold relevant evidence and are frequently overwritten or purged on routine schedules. Any party may instruct.
Written opinions on areas like what performance and systems records establish and how separation practice compared to convention.
Testimony on sample topics such as what workplace systems recorded and what can fairly be concluded from it.
Responsive analysis of performance record characterizations and business justification assertions.
Non-testifying records review, systems evidence scoping, HR norms, termination details, and preservation guidance.
Scott Steinberg is a #1 bestselling industry analyst, HR and strategy consultant, and business trends expert with over 28 years of experience providing management and strategic consulting services to more than 3,000 businesses and brands ranging from startups to government agencies and Fortune 500 firms.
He has testified in sample areas including intellectual property — copyrights, trademarks and patents — patent infringement, marketing, branding, video games, mobile applications, consumer product development, and the growth and monetization of online distribution platforms.
He is the author of over 30 books and has published more than five thousand articles addressing areas including but not limited to marketing, technology, leadership, innovation, advertising, digital transformation, data privacy and social networks. He appears regularly on ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, and has led seminars and training programs for organizations including Wells Fargo, the PGA Tour, Century 21, Ford, Dell and Procter & Gamble.
His consulting work has been broadly recognized. He has served as a thought leader for the American Bar Association and Corporate Counsel magazine, and has received honors from the International Association for Scholastic Excellence, Fortune, and the 21st Century Icon Awards, among others.
HR, employment, wrongful terminationa, discrimination, evidence and practice, etc.: what performance systems and workplace records actually show, whether a stated business justification is consistent with the contemporaneous record, what happened to the role afterward, and what the market impact was.
That characterization is for the finder of fact. What testimony supplies is whether the documentary record is consistent with the stated reason: how performance documentation was timed, how ratings compared across the team, what happened to the role afterward, and whether subsequent conduct matches the explanation given.
More than most parties expect. Review histories carry timestamps and edit trails, ratings can be compared across a team and over time, and goal records show what was set and when. Documentation patterns that changed shortly before a separation are visible in the system rather than a matter of recollection.
Because performance platforms, messaging archives, calendars and access logs are subject to routine retention schedules and overwriting. The records that best establish what happened are frequently the first to age out, so preservation scoping belongs at the start of a matter.
No. Loss calculation is a separate discipline. But other experts can supply the factual, market and records evidence those analyses rest on, including comparable role availability and realistic search timelines.
Initial conversations about scope, timing and conflicts are without charge. Helpful detail includes the role, the stated basis for separation and the period involved, plus any expert disclosure deadline already set.
A conflicts check is run before any substantive discussion. An initial note listing the party names and a one-line description of the dispute is enough to start; please hold privileged or confidential material until the check clears.