Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: Prevent Problems Before They Become Lawsuits
Episode 38
Could one difficult conversation turn into a lawsuit?
In Episode 38 of The People Success Circle, titled “Before it becomes a lawsuit,” we explore how emotional intelligence in the workplace can help HR leaders and business owners address issues early—before they escalate into legal disputes.
I’m joined by business attorney Tiffanie Clausewitz to discuss the people-related patterns that often lead to legal problems, and how clear communication, consistent expectations, and strong culture can prevent them. Listen to the episode or read on for practical insights and takeaways you can start applying right away.
In this episode of The People Success Circle, I explore how leaders can address workplace issues early and build the kind of culture that prevents problems before they become lawsuits.
I talk with business attorney Tiffanie Clausewitz about the people-related patterns she most often sees that lead companies into legal trouble—and how leaders can prevent workplace lawsuits by addressing issues earlier.
We explore why clear expectations and documentation are critical for leaders, from job descriptions to performance conversations and disciplinary actions.
I share insights from my HR experience on how workplace policies and procedures—like employee handbooks and reporting processes—protect both employees and organizations.
We discuss common compliance pitfalls such as employee misclassification and exempt vs. non-exempt status, and why these decisions create real employment law risk if handled incorrectly.
I ask Tiffanie how leaders can strengthen HR risk management by communicating clearly, documenting performance issues, and partnering closely with HR.
We talk about how culture and employee relations best practices—including consistent enforcement of policies and safe reporting channels—help organizations resolve issues before they escalate.
🎧 Tune in or keep reading to walk away with practical insights you can apply immediately—for yourself or the people you lead.
🔗 Helpful Links
🌐 Mindy’s website for business consulting: https://www.limerockcareerco.com
🎧 Listen to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts
Episode 38: Watch or Listen
Key Takeaways From Episode 38
Set Clear Expectations From the Start
One of the biggest themes in my conversation with Tiffanie was the importance of clear expectations and documentation. When leaders don’t clearly define job responsibilities, performance standards, or policies, misunderstandings happen—and those misunderstandings can quickly become legal disputes.
From job descriptions to employment agreements and employee handbooks, these foundational tools create clarity for both the employee and the employer. When expectations are clear from day one, it’s much easier to manage performance, address issues early, and ultimately prevent workplace lawsuits before they begin.
Strong Workplace Policies Protect Everyone
Many companies believe they’re covered simply because they have an employee handbook. But as we discussed in this episode, workplace policies and procedures only protect your organization when they are accurate, up to date, and consistently applied.
Policies should clearly outline expectations, reporting structures, and complaint processes. This helps employees understand where to go when issues arise and ensures leaders can respond appropriately. From an HR risk management perspective, well-designed policies act as guardrails that reduce confusion and lower overall employment law risk.
Address Performance Issues Early (It’s the Kind Thing to Do)
One insight I shared from my HR leadership experience is that avoiding difficult conversations rarely helps anyone. In fact, failing to address performance issues early often leads to bigger problems later.
Practicing emotional intelligence in the workplace means having honest, respectful conversations when something isn’t working. Employees should never be surprised by a disciplinary action or termination. Clear communication, coaching, and documentation are not only good leadership—they’re also essential employee relations best practices.
Culture Is One of Your Best Legal Protections
Culture isn’t just about engagement or morale—it’s also about risk prevention. When organizations create cultures built on transparency, consistency, and trust, they reduce the likelihood of disputes escalating into legal issues.
A workplace where employees feel safe reporting concerns, where leaders enforce policies consistently, and where communication is open creates an environment where problems are addressed early. And addressing issues early is one of the most effective ways to avoid employment lawsuits.
Consistency Matters More Than You Think
One of the biggest risks organizations face is inconsistent enforcement of policies. When some employees receive special treatment while others are disciplined, it creates confusion, frustration, and potential legal exposure.
Consistently applying policies and documenting decisions strengthens your organization’s credibility and fairness. It also supports stronger HR risk management practices and reinforces trust across your team.
Listen to the full episode of The People Success Circle for more insights on building a thriving culture that drives results.
Read the full transcript
Mindy East:
Yeah, welcome back to this week’s episode of The People Success Circle podcast. My guest today is someone who I know through my business networking. We’re both in an organization together, and I could not miss the opportunity to bring her on as a guest.
So let me tell you a little bit about her, and then I will welcome her.
So Tiffanie Clausewitz is the president of Klauswitz Reyes and a seasoned business attorney with over 15 years’ experience representing individuals and companies—whoops, sorry, she’ll fix that—individuals and companies across a wide range of industries. She is widely respected for guiding clients through complex business disputes, contract negotiations, and labor and employment matters.
Deeply committed to advancing women in leadership, Tiffanie is the founding director of the Bexar County Women’s Bar Foundation’s LEAD program. And she also serves as the founding board chair for Allegria Women’s Chorus here in San Antonio. A Texas Super Lawyer and multiple award recipient, she is recognized not only for her legal expertise, but also for her lasting impact on the San Antonio community.
Welcome, Tiffanie—I’m so glad you’re here.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Very nice. We should just end now to cut off expectations. Thank you.
Mindy East:
I know, right? It’s like, yeah. You know, when we hear our bio, we all feel the same way sometimes. I’m like, “Wow, that’s good.” But it’s good to hear all the accomplishments you’ve had. You know, I know you, so I know you have made your mark on San Antonio in so many different ways.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Thank you. Thank you.
Mindy East:
Yeah, and I really love hearing about what you’re doing for women lawyers too—so we’ll talk about that later in the episode.
But as I said, you are a business attorney, and coming from being an HR leader, I have worked with business attorneys for years. Back when I worked at McDonald’s Corporation, we had— we called them labor legal attorneys—on staff, because we in HR needed to be able to call them at any point in time if we had an issue.
And then as I moved into GAP, we had employer relations and labor legal attorneys. And so it’s always been a common person that I’ve partnered with as an HR leader. So knowing that many people listening are HR leaders or business professionals who lead and manage others, I just thought this was a great topic. And I’m so glad that you can share your expertise with us.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Glad after working with so many attorneys you want to talk to an attorney. I mean, that’s really good. Yeah. That’s a lot for the attorneys you work with. Yeah.
Mindy East:
I know—that’s a good sign, right? That is a good sign. I actually have really enjoyed working with the attorneys because I just love having the support, for one thing. Like, I actually feel like at this point, when it comes to employee relations, I’m not a lawyer—but I have worked in enough employee relations situations that I’ve learned a lot.
But I’ve just always been grateful for that actual solid advice that we need—not only to keep the company out of court, because we think about that—but also to really protect the employee and make sure we’re doing the right thing for the employee.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Right.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Absolutely, absolutely. Nobody necessarily wants an attorney to be involved, but they certainly need them. Yeah, yeah.
Mindy East:
Yes, yes—for sure, for sure. And then now, as my own—you know, I own my own business. I—you know this—I’ve come to you for questions about contracts and things like that, because as a business owner, I need your expertise too. So you provide a good service for a variety of different reasons.
Yeah. So let’s talk about that. So as a business attorney, you see companies at their best—
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Yeah, yeah.
Mindy East:
—and at their worst. What are some of the people-related issues that tend to create the biggest legal problems for companies?
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
You know, there’s a couple that come to mind. And one—I’ll probably sound like a broken record throughout this because I’ll probably keep coming back to it, because it’s that important.
The main one that seems to cause issues is failure to communicate clearly and set expectations clearly—have policies and procedures in place and enforce them on a uniform basis. And there’s just so many legal issues that can arise when business owners and leaders don’t pay attention to that upfront and kind of set the standard from the very beginning—and enforce it uniformly. That causes havoc.
Another issue that— you know, some legal issues seem to kind of pendulum back and forth… important, you know, hot issues one year or two and then go away the other. But one that does not go away—and I see a lot, especially with smaller businesses—is the independent contractors versus employees.
There’s a very common issue that comes up with people that an employer has hired under an independent contractor agreement because they don’t want to hire an employee necessarily yet and have to deal with everything that comes with having someone on as an employee. So instead they use an independent contractor agreement, and when done right and when handled the right way, that’s perfectly fine.
But too many people just—they want an employee, but they just want to hire them under an independent contractor agreement. Or the worker comes and says, “I’d rather be on a 1099, take all the money home and I’ll deal with my own taxes,” right? And so everybody thinks, “Hey, win-win situation.” And it’s not.
Mindy East:
Mm-hmm.
Mindy East:
It’s really not. I don’t think people really understand that it’s not just like our choice. There’s a guideline in the law that guides that decision.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Yeah, yeah.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Right. Absolutely, absolutely. And so one of the very common things I’ll hear is, “Well, Susie sued me for misclassification and said I should have had her as an employee and paid her overtime. But she told me she wanted to be an independent contractor.”
And the thing is, she can’t do that. You still have to comply with the law. The thing is, it’s hard for people to—it’s a multifaceted analysis. It’s a whole variety of factors that are looked at and there is no clear line.
So if people have a question, we tell them: if you are on the line about whether this person should be an employee or an independent contractor, you probably should make them an employee. And those claims are hard for employers, and they’re really risky because even if you litigate it and win, you still lose because you’re paying attorney’s fees and you’re not getting them back.
So yeah. So that’s a more narrow issue, but then the whole of what I said earlier about communication and documentation and all of that is big.
Mindy East:
Yeah. And so—gosh—I have so many questions, and you know I have a list of questions, but I feel like I’m already going to go off of them, which is okay. Sometimes the best interviews are, you know, just talking.
So, okay—questions on what you just said. First, when you said policies and procedures and guidelines for employees, are you also meaning an accurate job description in the beginning? And an employee manual with policies and things like that— is that what you’re referencing?
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Yeah—yes, and all of the above, right? We’re talking about starting with the job description to if you have an employment agreement—what does that agreement say?
You know, Texas here—we’re an at-will state. You don’t have to have a contract because you can terminate it any time, but that doesn’t mean that a lot of people don’t still have contracts and employment agreements. And just because you can terminate it any time doesn’t mean that you can terminate without repercussions, right?
So making sure that you know what you’re signing on both sides. And then it’s—the job description. It’s also policies and procedures. It’s an employee handbook if you have one.
All of this kind of folds out to provide those guardrails for your company and for your employees. And it’s usually failure to have those in place that makes a case even more difficult when it gets to me.
Because if you come to me because you’ve terminated somebody because they failed to fulfill what you think was an essential job function, the first thing I’m going to say is, “Where does it say that? What did you give them before you hired them? And did you verify—even if it says that—did you verify they could do that before you hired them?”
Because those are the questions that TWC is going to be asking me if I’m defending you in a TWC unemployment claim, right? So that’s where it all makes—everything makes a difference.
Mindy East:
Everything makes a difference.
Now I have another question. I told you this was going to happen. I’m like that book, Moosa Wet Muffin, and you go on a rampage.
So when you say verify that they can actually do that job, is that through having documented interview guides and notes?
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
That would be one way to do it, absolutely.
I clearly remember one—and I don’t remember the exact details about what the employee couldn’t do. I think it might’ve been one of the very first TWC claims I handled. And I said, “Well, you know, hearing officer, they couldn’t do X, Y, Z.” And they asked me, “Was it on the job description?” And I kind of maneuvered my way into where it was covered under one of the things on the job description. It wasn’t super clear, but it was umbrella.
And then they said, “And did you verify that they could do this?” And the answer was—had anybody ever asked her, “Could she do it?” No.
So just because it’s on the job description—hey, we hire people all the time, right? You put out a qualifications list or requirements and you think they have this experience, but we can grow them into it.
So if you are going to terminate somebody based on something they couldn’t do when they told you they did—hopefully you’ve got notes or some kind of recording being able to say, “Yes, we asked, and yes, they said they did.”
It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to outside verify that they could do it, but that they represented they could and then they couldn’t. That’s going to be a for-cause termination such that you might not be responsible for unemployment.
Mindy East:
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, in my HR consulting firm, I do employee manuals for companies. And I’m currently working with a company that has locations in five different states. They have one employee manual, which sounds great because they have an employee manual—but it doesn’t talk about the individual state regulations and laws. So that’s what we’re working on with them: to update it and make it relevant.
And so I often think just because you have a manual doesn’t mean it’s working the way that it should.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Absolutely—yeah. And a lot of people think—and you’ll know this working in HR consulting—but they think, “I’ll go find a template handbook online and download and copy it, and there’s my manual.”
Well, I guess theoretically that’s better than nothing. Theoretically, most of the time it’s better than nothing—but not always. Because as you said, each state has different requirements. So was it drafted in the state that you were in? And so is it jurisdictionally accurate?
Or if you’ve got employees in different states—well, you can usually have one basic handbook that has all of the general provisions and then all of the policies and procedures that are driven by federal law. But if you’re in some states that tend to have more stringent or active state—and even local sometimes—regulations, you need to make sure you’ve got an addendum or an appendix that is addressing that specific state.
Mindy East:
Yes. It can even be county.
Yeah, for sure. Even down to the county. And not all counties have it. And certainly in Texas, it’s less stringent than a lot of other places. However, I have listeners all over the world, really. And so I think it’s just important to know wherever you are to verify your local—down to the county and state—policies that affect your business.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Right, right.
Mindy East:
Okay, so now I want to talk a little bit more about classification.
So you mentioned 1099 to employee. Another thing I also see is employers will just decide someone’s exempt versus non-exempt. And they really don’t know that there’s a law that determines if you are exempt or not exempt. It’s not just if you want the person to be exempt or not.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Absolutely. Right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the time.
Again, it’s just a more complicated analysis. Even people that are aware of it don’t realize—again—it’s so many factors and exceptions and exemptions and all of that. So it’s not something that generally a lay person is going to know.
It’s not something—as an attorney—that I can rattle off the top of my head. I’m going to have to look it up.
Mindy East:
And do you see that too?
No, me neither. Yeah. Yeah. I’d have to look it up too.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
As many of these cases as I’ve done, I can’t rattle it off to you because it’s complicated.
And so there’s this desire to just classify everybody as exempt and pay them the salary because, let’s be real, for budgeting purposes for a business owner, that’s certainly much more predictable, right? We know that no matter how many hours this person works, we’re going to pay this flat amount.
And most of the time, that’s not working. They’re going to have to be paid overtime. And so then I’ll have clients come in and say, “Well, I paid him a salary, but it was an exorbitant salary. And so even if you do the calculation at minimum wage, I would have already paid him overtime.”
And very unfortunately for them, that’s not how it works. You take the salary and you calculate what that would be as a flat rate—no matter if they were paid a fantastic salary and you’re paying up and above.
So yeah—those are some of the issues that, even for small businesses who are thinking, “Gosh, I really don’t want to be up-fronting money to an attorney”—it’s a good idea. There are just some fundamental decisions that should be run by an attorney at the beginning because it’s going to help you avoid disputes and exposure and legal fees and costs later.
Mindy East:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I’ve learned that personally.
So I know as a founder that many times when we start a business, we really think about building our offers, getting our clients, revenue growth—and then guilty as charged here too—we think about investing in contracts or, like we said, a handbook, proper training around things that could be legal pitfalls for us.
So when you see somebody like that—and like I said, I’m guilty of that as well—what things do you just really wish that a business owner knew right from the get-go? Like, “I know you’re focusing on your offers, but you must do X, Y, Z.”
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Right. So, I mean, the very first decision you make is what type of entity you’re going to form, right?
And so in Texas—look—like 90% of entities… that’s not an exact percentage, it varies, but about 90% of entities, 85% are LLCs because we have the advantage of that structure. That’s a very nice, flexible structure that can still be taxed like it’s passed through as like a partnership, but it has some other protections of a corporation.
But those decisions matter for reasons related to taxation—which is always when I say before you make that decision, talk to your accountant—but also from the liability exposure and the authority of those that have ownership interests, right?
So that’s super important to chat with an attorney about that decision.
When you form the entity—for say an LLC—there’s an operating agreement that needs to be put in place, or a company agreement depending on how it’s phrased. It’s all the same thing. If you’re a solo entrepreneur, that agreement doesn’t matter so much, because you’re working with yourself and that’s it.
But if you have a partner or another member—another owner—whether they are your equal or you’ve got minority/majority, whether you consider them silent or not—if you don’t put an operating agreement into place and make those decisions about authority, about rights, and how things are going to be managed and decisions made, then you’re leaving yourself to the mercy of the business organizations code.
Which isn’t terrible. It’s probably just not what you expect.
So for business owners that have partners, I really wish they would invest upfront in that operating agreement.
We deal with lots of business owners who come to us and they’re fighting. We call it a business divorce or whatever. One owner is like, “I’m done, I want out,” but there is no mechanism to just get out of a company under the code. You own it, you have a responsibility for it, you have to maintain it.
Those company agreements are critical in setting the guidelines—the guardrails—upfront about what’s going to happen in certain situations.
And you know, when people are starting a business, they’re super excited—like, “My best friend and I are starting a business.” And I always cringe a little bit because there’s so much that could go wrong. You know, it’s your best friend. Yeah—or family, exactly.
But great. While y’all are still getting along fabulously, let’s talk about how you would want to deal with these issues that come up. Let’s talk about it—especially if you’re 50/50, which is a terrible idea, but whatever.
Yeah, so those agreements are just really crucial.
Mindy East:
Yeah, for sure.
Now let’s switch to like a corporation—but a company where maybe the listener is like, “I don’t own a company, but I lead people in my company.” What advice do you have for leaders to help them mitigate or stay away from employment disputes in the team that they have?
How can a leader prevent employment issues and disputes?
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Yeah. Well, you know, it’s really all about the culture that the company has created from the top down.
The biggest issues that I see come up is the lack of clarity—clarity leads to misunderstanding and issues that then can expose a company to risk.
And so that’s why it’s so important that the workplace policies and procedures clearly lay out expectations. They clearly lay out complaint processes. Those are huge. And reporting processes so that employees feel empowered and unintimidated—reporting issues and talking to their supervisors without fear of reprisal—and keeping those communication lines super, super open.
But also with that is: with those communication lines open, then the leader has to be empowered and consistently enforce the policies and procedures that are in place.
So I feel like upfront, it’s clarity and good communication with employees. And then as issues arise, it’s consistent enforcement of those policies and procedures that’s going to protect you.
Mindy East:
Yes, yes. I see the lack of consistent enforcement more than anything from an HR perspective.
Someone will come to me and they’ll say, “So-and-so is not working out, and it’s time to terminate them.” My first question is, “Will they be surprised? Do they know anything about this coming? Tell me more information.”
You know, really just unpacking what’s the story that led to where we are now. It’s not as simple as, “I want to terminate this person,” or, “I’m going to terminate this person.” There’s a story that led you to this point, and we need to unpack it and make sure that— you know, I always say in HR, my goal is to protect the company and keep them out of court, but also to represent every employee and make sure they’re getting fair treatment—because that is first and foremost the most important thing.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Absolutely, absolutely.
We find so often that when there is a lack of communication—if you’re not talking to the employees, they’re talking to others or they’re telling themselves a story. And so if they don’t understand why something is happening, they will have a whole narrative built up and be ready to run with it.
And so I think a lot of people think they are being kind to employees by not being clear about expectations and not jumping in early when issues are identified and course correcting quickly. They think, “First it’ll get better.” And then it’s like, “Gosh, I don’t want to deal with this,” until you’re at a termination standpoint.
And that employee—who maybe, you know, what we call protective status under Title VII—they’ve noticed the pulling back and the freezing out, and they feel like they are being treated differently. And so you terminate them and say it’s for cause, and they’ve decided it’s for another reason.
And it just leads you to all the time that you have to spend defending the company and your actions.
Mindy East:
Yeah.
You know, I did a podcast episode with my guest Cindy Rowe, and she talks about kindness—that’s her main topic. And she talked a lot about how kindness is not ignoring performance issues. There’s nothing kind about talking about someone not performing and not letting them know. Like, the kind thing is actually to do the right thing—which is the hard thing oftentimes—but to involve the employee and make sure that they know.
The other thing I see sometimes in HR is not even that the leader wants to come in and is ready to term them. They’ve kind of figured out a way to work around all of it. They’re like, “Well, I could lay that person off,” or, “I could move them to another team.” Oh my gosh—that one happens a lot. Right? Because they just don’t want to handle those difficult conversations and document those difficult conversations.
So those things can happen. And I think for all the leaders out there, the best thing you can do is to do the kind thing—which is to address performance, document it, and partner with human resources so that you’re doing things in the right way.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Exactly. And it’s like you said—nobody should be surprised when those disciplinary actions come. Nobody should be surprised.
Mindy East:
Nobody should be surprised. Yeah, no—they really shouldn’t.
So you mentioned culture. How should companies think about culture from a legal perspective?
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
I think you kind of have to think of culture as the internal controls—kind of like accounting—because what you’re doing is you’re trying to prevent losses: predictable losses.
Most legal problems aren’t surprises—they’re patterns. They are a manager or a supervisor usually who keeps crossing lines that everybody just kind of says, “It’s no big deal,” or it’s a team that cuts corners, or somebody who’s given special treatment maybe because they’re a high performer, so they get a loose line on other requirements.
So this is all noticeable. It’s not surprising. But those are the patterns that, if they’re allowed to persist, create the opening for lawsuits, for investigations, and for turnover—because employees don’t like working in those situations.
And so culture is absolutely a risk factor because it’s a leading indicator that tells you what claims you’re going to face later.
So in that respect, I feel like the best legal strategy is aligning your culture with clear expectations, consistent enforcement, and a safe reporting process.
It’s critical that employees feel safe making complaints, making reports so that you know what’s going on—because you can’t address it if you don’t know.
Too many times people will say, “Well, I didn’t know how to report it. It wasn’t in the handbook.” And the employer’s coming to me saying, “All they had to do was tell me.” And I said, “Well—but you didn’t tell them that’s all they had to do.”
And then another part of that—going a little bit off of a rabbit hole—is when somebody reports or makes a complaint under Title VII, reporting is a protected action. And so if you suffer an adverse employment action after you have participated in that protected action, you’re looking at a retaliation claim.
And some people are like, “Well, they didn’t report it.” Well, they told a supervisor—but that supervisor didn’t think it was a big deal and didn’t pass it up the chain. That’s a report. Under the statute, that’s a report.
And so even when that employee is fired or demoted or whatever later— even though maybe the person up higher that made the decision didn’t know about the report—it’s happened.
So a clear reporting structure is crucial. And again, that culture for employees to know that they have avenues for being heard is really important.
Mindy East:
Yeah—and they represent the company.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Exactly. And a culture of knowing that the expectations are clear and I’m expected to follow them.
Mindy East:
Do you recommend—sometimes I see it in job descriptions, and this is an honest question for me—do you recommend that the job description say the reporting structure? Some do and some don’t, and I’ve never really enforced it.
And then a lot of companies don’t have org charts.
So when you say you have a clear reporting structure, I know you mean to report an issue—but if there’s not a clear reporting structure of like, “I go to the owner,” “I go to the department manager,” like who do I report to—and then who do I go to after that—how do you recommend they clarify?
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Usually those are going to be in either a policy and procedure or in the handbook—depending on if you have a handbook or not.
But that’s one of the policies that you absolutely should have new employees sign off on. And it’s going to be an explicit direction.
It can be as simple as: you report to HR. But even better if you can put who they report to in HR—and it can be a position, not a person, in case that’s going to change.
And you always need to have an alternative reporting person because there are smaller companies that don’t have an HR department—right? Their CEO or their supervisors, somebody’s handling it.
So you also want to have an alternative reporting person because, frankly, they might be complaining about the person they’re supposed to report to.
So there needs to be a backup: if you can’t report to that person because they’re the one you’re complaining about, then second choice is this.
But yeah, it needs to be written down. It needs to be something that they have signed and acknowledged, because then if they don’t do that, that is one of the defenses the company has—to be able to say: “Employees signed this, this was the reporting structure, and they didn’t do that. So we didn’t know. There was nothing we could do about it because we didn’t know.”
Mindy East:
Right. That makes perfect sense.
And I do recommend having two people there, just in case. And then I think there’s also—leaders are really perceived often as having favoritism, right? And so somebody will say, “Well, I wanted to— it’s my boss I’m unhappy with—but I can’t go to their boss because I can tell they’re really good friends,” right? Or whatever.
And there’s that perceived favoritism that happens. So I really love that you just said: regardless of the size of your company, you should have that policy. That makes perfect sense.
Let’s switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about the support that you provide women lawyers, and I would love to hear a little bit about what prompted you to found the program called LEAD that you have here in San Antonio.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Oh, absolutely.
It was kind of a confluence of a few things that happened at the time we founded this program. I was the president of the Women’s Bar here in Bexar County, and we were kind of trying to come up with our next big thing. The Women’s Bar in San Antonio has a deep history of creating projects that benefit the community. So it was time for a new one.
I was doing strategic planning with a committee to figure out what was next. About the same time, two things happened.
One was I was personally looking for leadership development—a leadership development program. I felt like I needed to enhance my skills, and I couldn’t really find anything local that was applicable or that I was interested in. So I just kind of had a thirst for something.
And then the other factor was at the time, the National Association of Women Lawyers had just put out their decade-long study of the attrition of women in the legal field. They had been working hard over 10 years to pull the numbers up for representation of women in the field—and really no headway had been made at all.
So those three things together—leadership development, the Women’s Bar conveniently needing a new project, and then the attrition of women—what can we do to convince women, “Don’t leave,” right? When you hit a barrier, don’t quit. Find a way to go around it.
So that’s what led to the program. We’re aimed at helping with attrition.
I was happy to see we had our ninth class just kicked off, and so I was giving updated stats over the last 10 years.
In the 10 years that the program’s been going, pipeline numbers are going strong. When you look at women in law school, they outnumber men a little bit. When you look at entering the field as an associate level, we’re neck and neck.
Where the numbers start dropping is in promotion up. It’s promotion up to partner level, up to equity owner, into decision maker roles. So there’s still a ways to go.
The numbers have gotten better, but there’s certainly no parity. We’ve got to figure out what’s going on—and what can we do to help improve that situation.
And so I feel like we’ve made a lot of headway here in Bexar County.
We actually have a cool program. The next seminar for the class has a panel discussion called “Good Guys.” We’ve been doing this for four or five years. We bring in men who are allies for the promotion of women in the industry. We have a panel presentation, and then each class member brings a guy that’s a good guy in their life who’s an ally, and we have a really frank and open discussion.
It’s always interesting to hear the feedback from the men in the room who’ve never thought about these issues or the consequences of them because they’ve never had to. It’s always a little uncomfortable at the beginning, but by the end, it’s fantastic.
I feel like the more of those conversations we can have with the men—and the more that we can help women realize you can practice however you want to practice law… there isn’t this cookie cutter image of a woman attorney on Law & Order or something like that—that’s not real.
Sometimes women have kind of worked themselves into a box of very strict requirements that they feel like they can’t meet because they’ve been telling themselves a story of what it means to be successful.
So we try to open up the lens of: no, success is when you’re happy doing what you’re doing. That’s it. You’re practicing authentically as yourself, and you’re happy.
And so that’s what we work on. And we’ve got almost 150 alums now. So it’s really cool.
Mindy East:
That is so amazing. And it’s cohort based, right? So every year you’ll have a new cohort.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
Yeah, yeah. It is. Every year we do about 16. So it’s really great. The relationship building has been incredible.
Mindy East:
Yeah. Well, I hope you’re super proud of that— that you have been a founding director. You should be.
Because anytime we make the effort to consciously pour back into people who have not been doing what we do as long as we’ve done it… it could be in law or any profession, for men or for women… anytime we look at people who are starting after us and say, “Here, let me help show you the way,” I think that’s when the real great results happen.
Well, thank you so much for your time today. I know that I learned a lot, and I’m sure that my audience members did too. So I just want to thank you for your time. I know you are extremely busy, and I just appreciate you sharing with us.
Tiffanie Clausewitz:
My absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Mindy East:
All right. Mika, I’m just going to do my closer.
Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of The People Success Circle podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend or leave a review.
You can find contact information for Tiffanie at Klauswitz Reyes Law Firm, as well as—we will put a link to the Bexar County LEAD Academy so that you can learn more about that as well.
Thank you, and we’ll see you next week.
