I don’t take a percentage of the severance you were already offered.

If you already have an offer in hand, I negotiate on a contingency basis that excludes the amount already on the table.

The reason is simple. If your employer has offered you ten thousand dollars to sign a release, I did nothing to create that ten thousand. It was there before you had heard my name. Taking a percentage of it has never sat right with me, so I don’t. I am paid on what I add.

The remaining terms are something we work out when we talk, in a written agreement, before I do anything on your behalf.

What actually moves a severance number

Severance is not a formula. It moves when there is a claim behind it — when the employer has a reason to prefer a signed release to the alternative.

In practice that usually means one of two things. Either you were terminated shortly after doing something the law protects — making a complaint, requesting FMLA leave, asking for an accommodation, reporting harassment — or the termination tracks a protected category and there is evidence to support it. The closer in time those events sit, the more the number tends to move.

If none of that is present, the number usually will not move much, and I will tell you so on the first call rather than take your time and your money finding out. That conversation is free and takes about fifteen minutes.

Severance is more than the cash figure

The number in the letter is one term among many. Depending on the situation, what is on the table can also include unvested restricted stock or performance units, a pro-rated bonus, commissions you have earned but not been paid, how long benefits continue, outplacement, the reference the company will give, whether the agreement releases you from a non-compete or non-solicit, and the non-disparagement language — which usually runs one way until someone asks for it to run both.

People sign away several of these without realising they were negotiable.

The clock is longer than you think

If you are forty or older and the offer came as part of a group layoff, federal law requires the employer to give you forty-five days to consider it, plus seven days to revoke after signing, if it wants a valid release of an age discrimination claim. For an individual termination, the period is twenty-one days, plus the same seven-day revocation.

In a group program the employer must also disclose the job titles and ages of everyone selected for the program and everyone in the same unit who was not. That disclosure is required by law, arrives before you sign anything, and is sometimes the most informative document in the entire matter.

The urgency you are feeling to sign by Friday is usually manufactured. Read the document; it will tell you how long you actually have.

Common questions

How do you charge for severance negotiation?

On a contingency basis that excludes any amount you were already offered. The specific terms are set out in a written agreement before I begin, and we discuss them on the first call.

Should I sign the severance agreement I was given?

Not before you have read it carefully and know what you are releasing. A severance agreement is a release of legal claims — including, usually, any claim arising out of how you were treated and how you were terminated. Once it is signed and the revocation period has run, those claims are gone.

Can I negotiate if I have already been given a deadline?

Usually, yes. Deadlines in severance offers are often shorter than the law requires and are frequently extended when asked. And if the statutory consideration period applies to you, the deadline in the letter may not be the operative one at all.

Will asking for more make them withdraw the offer?

It is a common fear and rarely what happens. An employer offering severance wants a signed release; that motive does not disappear because you asked a question. How the request is made matters, which is part of what you are hiring someone for.

What if I do not have an offer yet?

Then there is nothing to exclude, and we are really talking about whether you have a claim. Call and we will work out which conversation this is.