A whistleblower claim arises when an employee encounters waste, fraud, or abuse, illegal conduct by the employer. We see that in many ways I’ve dealt with cases with fraudulent medical billing. I’ve dealt with cases where the employee was being asked to lie about the specifications of a product that created a safety risk when it was put out in the public. Anytime that there is typically governmental involvement in projects you really won’t see whistleblower claims in the private sector you’ll see them where there’s a government contract involved or government money flowing through. There’s statutes that protect employees who come forward and make a claim both now internally to the employer and externally to any agency outside of the employer about this type of illegal conduct that’s occurring in the workplace.

We see whistleblowers come forward its been a bit of, I think, an explosion in terms of whistleblower claims over the course of the last decade. These whistleblowers will come forward and I think that whistleblowers have learned through media reports and through just following other whistleblower claims that if they do have the documentation and the proof that the employer has engaged in illegal conduct that they would be subject to an award at the end of a successful prosecution of that employer. And so, I think employees have now come forward, they really understand that process better.

There are very strong protections for whistleblowers in the workplace and so I would encourage anyone who’s considering a whistleblower claim to consult with an attorney, talk to them about the potential landmines that are involved with a whistleblower claim. One thing that employees often don’t understand is that there’s something called a public disclosure bar. So even if you uncover illegal activity of your employer but you start talking to the world about it that could limit or eliminate your ability to come forward as a whistleblower. If you consult an attorney first, you can perfect that claim and protect yourself in a way that you’ll come out the other end in a much better place.