Howard Levitt: If my 40 years of legal experience were even vaguely equivalent to a 40-second Google search, I would have been long out of business.

Howard Levitt: Searching Google is no substitute for real advice from an experienced employment lawyer

A little bit of knowledge is often a dangerous thing. While internet tutorials on fixing leaky sinks might be handy, in more complex areas, you are better off dealing with actual experts.

Just ask any practicing physician. For every patient who recognizes they are suffering  a common cold, another is convinced they are dying of Ebola. Just because your symptoms happen to match some exotic disease you discovered while consulting Google, it does not mean the end is near.

Unfortunately, the legal realm is not immune to the same self-diagnosis. Indeed, it is increasingly prevalent. And while I can appreciate a client’s thirst for knowledge, there is no substitute for real advice from an experienced employment lawyer. If my 40 years of legal experience were even vaguely equivalent to a 40-second Google search, I would have been long out of business.

One of the most pernicious legal self-diagnoses revolves around severance. In a 2016 article I wrote on the myths of severance pay, I explained that, while there are a number of key factors that usually determine how much severance you are entitled to, including age, years of service, remuneration, position, and availability of comparable employment, there is no magic formula.

It would appear as though my advice fell on deaf ears because, since that time, there has been a proliferation of online articles, videos, and severance formulas and algorithms promising to do all of the legal research for you. Unfortunately, much like everything else on the internet, there are few checks and balances to ensure the information is accurate.

Moreover, as the law has constantly evolved, a two-year-old article extolling the parameters of a particular legal issue is often completely redundant. The reality is that employment matters are far more nuanced than people understand. While a typical severance formula considers four or five factors in determining entitlement, my book, the Law of Dismissal in Canada, refers to more than 130 that courts can consider. One day there might be a sophisticated calculation that can compute each and every one, and realistically there will never be, we are certainly a long way from that.

Similarly, there seems to be a great deal of misconception online about what constitutes a constructive dismissal. Broadly put, a constructive dismissal occurs when an employer unilaterally makes a fundamental alteration to an employee’s employment terms without her consent or sufficient advance notice. Yet much like severance entitlements, identifying a constructive dismissal is rarely straightforward.

Recently, I met with three different clients, all of whom believed they had been constructively dismissed. Not one of them had. One employer had modified the employee’s hours of work, another the employee’s job duties and another the rate of pay.

In isolation, these modifications do not necessarily constitute a constructive dismissal. Interestingly, all three clients had a similar reaction when I explained that what they presumed was a great case, wasn’t a case at all: “But I read online…”

I don’t know where people are receiving their employment law advice these days but clearly it isn’t from a bona fide employment lawyer. At least these individuals had the foresight to speak with me before potentially destroying their employment relationship, or worse, any opportunity at securing a decent severance package. In fact, an unfounded claim of constructive dismissal can result in the employee losing both their job and any potential for severance.

There is no shortage of professions. Even among lawyers, there are hundreds of areas of specialization. While algorithms and blog posts can aid employers and employees alike with ballpark figures and general information, there is no substitute for experience.

Rather than using the internet to search for answers to your legal problem, save yourself considerable suffering, not to mention money, and use it for something more productive — such as finding an experienced employment lawyer who has spent time in the courtroom and who knows how to navigate the law and the system.