New York City Wrongful Termination Lawyer

If you lost your job and suspect the real reason wasn’t the one your employer gave you, your instincts may be right. Employers fire people for illegal reasons all the time. They just don’t admit it. They hide behind performance concerns that appeared out of nowhere, restructuring that conveniently eliminated your position, or policy violations they never enforced against anyone else.

Our New York City wrongful termination lawyer at The Bloom Firm represents employees who were fired illegally. We handle terminations based on discrimination, retaliation, whistleblowing, and other unlawful reasons. We work on contingency, which means you pay nothing unless we recover money for you. If you believe your termination was illegal, contact us for a free consultation.

Why Choose The Bloom Firm for Wrongful Termination Cases in New York City?

We See Through Pretextual Firings

Wrongful termination cases are fundamentally about exposing lies. Your employer says you were fired for performance. We look at your reviews from the past five years and find nothing but praise until three weeks after you complained about harassment. Your employer says your position was eliminated. We discover they hired someone younger for the same role with a different title two months later. Your employer says you violated company policy. We show a dozen employees who did the same thing without consequence.

This is what we do. We take apart the explanations employers construct to disguise illegal firings, and we prove what actually motivated them.

The Bloom Firm has handled wrongful termination cases involving discrimination, retaliation, whistleblower protection violations, and other illegal grounds. We’ve represented employees fired after requesting prayers following coronavirus exposure, employees terminated for reporting misconduct, and employees pushed out because of their race, sex, age, disability, religion, or LGBTQ identity.

Lisa Bloom founded the firm in 2010 to represent people whose rights have been violated by those with more power. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1986 and has been named a Super Lawyer every year since 2015. Her career has included cases against celebrities, major corporations, and institutions that believed they were untouchable. She appears regularly on CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC as a legal analyst.

Arick Fudali serves as Partner and Managing Attorney with licenses in New York, California, and Florida. Before civil rights work, he prosecuted criminal cases in Broward County, Florida, developing the investigative skills that wrongful termination cases require. He graduated from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 2010 and has focused on employment cases since 2011. He appears frequently on CNN, Court TV, and News Nation.

Our employment lawyer in New York City covers the full range of workplace violations, including the discrimination and harassment claims that frequently accompany wrongful termination matters.

What We’ve Achieved

Millions of dollars recovered for employees who were illegally fired. We’ve beaten companies with massive legal budgets and aggressive tactics. We’ve won cases other attorneys considered too difficult. When we take on your wrongful termination case, we fight until you receive what you’re owed.

The Fee Structure

You pay nothing unless we win. No retainer. No hourly billing. We advance litigation costs and collect fees only from the recovery. Losing your job is financially devastating enough without worrying about attorney fees on top of it.

What Clients Say

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“I was overwhelmed and scared after losing my job. The Bloom Firm explained my options clearly, took my case seriously, and achieved a result that helped me move forward. They genuinely cared about what happened to me.” — Allison Klein, Client

Read more reviews on our Google Business Profile.

Types of Wrongful Termination Cases We Handle in New York City

New York is an at-will employment state, meaning employers can generally fire employees for any reason or no reason. But they cannot fire you for an illegal reason. Here’s what makes a termination wrongful:

Discrimination-based termination. Your employer fired you because of your race, sex, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or another protected characteristic. They won’t admit it. They’ll claim performance issues or business necessity. But if the timing, circumstances, or patterns reveal discriminatory motive, the termination was illegal. We handle employment discrimination cases throughout New York City.
Retaliation for complaints. You reported sexual harassment, discrimination, safety violations, wage theft, or other misconduct. Instead of addressing the problem, your employer addressed you by firing you. Retaliation for good-faith complaints violates New York law regardless of whether the underlying complaint was ultimately substantiated.
Whistleblower cases. You reported illegal activity, fraud, regulatory violations, or threats to public safety. Your employer silenced you by ending your employment. Whistleblower protections under New York and federal law provide remedies including reinstatement, back pay, and damages.
FMLA and leave retaliation. You took legally protected leave for your own serious health condition, to care for a family member, or for pregnancy and childbirth. When you returned, your position had vanished, or you were terminated shortly after. Punishing employees for exercising leave rights violates federal and state law.
Pregnancy and caregiver discrimination. Your employer terminated you because you became pregnant, requested parental leave, or have caregiving responsibilities. New York City specifically prohibits caregiver discrimination, a protection broader than federal law provides.
Constructive discharge. Your employer didn’t technically fire you. Instead, they made conditions so intolerable that resignation became your only option. They stripped your responsibilities. Excluded you from meetings. Reassigned you to a dead-end role. Made clear you had no future. When employers deliberately force employees out, the law treats it as termination.
Contract violations. You had an employment contract, offer letter, or employee handbook that limited your employer’s ability to fire you without cause or without following specific procedures. Your employer ignored those terms and terminated you anyway. Contract-based wrongful termination claims don’t require proving discrimination, only that your employer broke its agreement.
Public policy violations. Your employer fired you for reasons that violate public policy: refusing to commit illegal acts, exercising legal rights, performing civic duties like jury service, or filing workers’ compensation claims. New York recognizes these terminations as wrongful even without specific statutory protection.

New York Legal Protections Against Wrongful Termination

New York’s framework for challenging wrongful termination draws on multiple overlapping sources of law.

New York City and State Protections

The New York City Human Rights Law prohibits termination based on protected characteristics and requires liberal interpretation in favor of employees. It covers employers with four or more employees and protects an extensive list of characteristics including race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, caregiver status, and many others. The NYC Commission on Human Rights enforces these protections.

The New York State Division of Human Rights enforces parallel state protections covering employers throughout New York. The 2019 amendments strengthened these protections by extending filing deadlines and making claims easier to pursue.

New York Labor Law provides additional protections, including prohibitions on retaliation for wage complaints, safety complaints, and whistleblowing. The state’s Department of Labor and related agencies enforce these provisions.

Federal Protections

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discriminatory termination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act covers age-based firings of workers forty and older. The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits termination based on disability. The Family and Medical Leave Act protects against retaliation for taking protected leave. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces these federal statutes.

Various whistleblower protection laws, including Sarbanes-Oxley for publicly traded companies and Dodd-Frank for financial industry employees, provide remedies for retaliatory termination following reports of fraud or violations.

Statutes of Limitations

Three years for wrongful termination claims under New York City and State Human Rights Law. Federal discrimination claims require filing with the EEOC within 300 days. Whistleblower claims have varying deadlines depending on the specific statute. Missing these deadlines can permanently bar your claim, so consulting an attorney promptly matters.

Important Aspects of a New York City Wrongful Termination Case

Wrongful termination cases typically require proving that your employer’s stated reason for firing you was pretextual and that an illegal reason actually motivated the decision.

The Termination Timeline

When did things change? Document the sequence carefully. You were praised for years. Then you complained about discrimination, disclosed a pregnancy, took medical leave, or turned forty. Suddenly performance concerns appeared. The timeline often tells the story employers try to obscure.

Your Performance Record

Gather every performance review, bonus record, commendation, and positive email you can find. Employers claiming performance problems need to explain why those problems never appeared in formal evaluations. A strong documented record before the alleged issues emerged undermines pretextual explanations.

Comparator Treatment

Who else engaged in the conduct your employer claims justified your termination? Were they fired? If employees outside your protected class committed the same violations without consequence, that disparity supports your claim. Identifying appropriate comparators often provides the clearest evidence of discriminatory motive.

Documentation Before and After

Save everything. Emails showing your contributions and positive feedback. Communications where problems suddenly emerged. The termination notice and any separation documents. Correspondence with HR. Many employees don’t realize how much documentation matters until they’re trying to build a case without it.

Severance Considerations

Your employer may have offered severance contingent on signing a release of claims. Before signing anything, consult an attorney. Releases waive your right to sue, and the severance offered may be far less than your claims are worth. We review severance agreements and advise whether signing makes sense or whether negotiation or litigation would serve you better.

The Investigation

Wrongful termination cases require investigation beyond what’s obvious. We subpoena personnel files, emails, and internal communications. We depose decision-makers and HR personnel. We analyze patterns in who gets fired and who doesn’t. We identify witnesses who can testify about your performance, the workplace environment, and the employer’s motives.

Available Damages

Successful wrongful termination claims can produce back pay covering wages lost since termination, front pay for future lost earnings, compensatory damages for emotional distress, and punitive damages in egregious cases. New York law allows attorney’s fee recovery, which creates additional settlement leverage. What you recover depends on your salary, the strength of evidence, and how egregious the employer’s conduct was. Claims involving civil rights violations may support enhanced damages.

Contact The Bloom Firm

Losing your job under circumstances that seem wrong is disorienting. You’re dealing with financial stress, emotional fallout, and uncertainty about whether you have any recourse. You do.

We provide free consultations to evaluate your termination and explain your options. Our contingency fee structure means you pay nothing unless we win. We advance all litigation costs. There is no financial risk in finding out whether you have a case.

Employers count on fired employees being too overwhelmed or discouraged to fight back. Prove them wrong. If you were terminated for illegal reasons in New York City, contact The Bloom Firm today. We’re ready to hold your former employer accountable.

Types of Wrongful Termination Services We Offer

Losing a job can feel sudden and confusing, especially when the reason given does not seem fair or lawful. In many cases, a termination may violate the law depending on the facts involved. In these cases, your New York City, NY wrongful termination lawyer can help. At The Bloom Firm, we’ll use our decades of experience to review what happened and determine whether legal action may be appropriate. Keep reading to see the termination-related cases we handle, and contact us today.

Termination Based On Discrimination: Being fired due to race, gender, age, disability, religion, or other protected traits may violate the law. Your New York City wrongful termination attorney will review employer actions and records to determine whether bias played a part in the decision.

Retaliation For Reporting Misconduct: Employees have the right to speak up about illegal or unsafe practices. If someone is fired after reporting concerns, that may point to retaliation, which can form the basis of a claim.

Termination After Filing A Complaint: Filing a workplace complaint, such as harassment or wage issues, should not lead to losing a job. Your illegal firing attorney can examine whether your firing followed closely after a complaint and whether there was a link between the two.

Breach Of Employment Contract: Some employees have written or implied contracts that limit how and when they can be terminated. If those terms are not followed, we may pursue a claim based on the agreement.

Violation Of Public Policy: Certain firings go against public policy, such as terminating someone for serving on a jury or refusing to take part in illegal activity. These situations may give rise to a claim even in at-will employment settings.

Termination During Medical Leave: Employees who take protected medical leave may have legal protections. If a person is let go while on leave or shortly after returning, your wrongful dismissal attorney can look at whether your rights were violated.

Whistleblower Related Termination: Workers who report fraud, safety issues, or other wrongdoing may be protected under whistleblower laws. Losing a job after making a report can be a sign of unlawful conduct by the employer.

Constructive Discharge: Sometimes a person is not directly fired but feels forced to resign due to intolerable conditions. When the workplace becomes hostile or unfair to the point that leaving is the only option, it may be treated as a termination under the law.

Termination After Requesting Accommodations: Employees who request reasonable accommodations for a disability or other protected condition should not face termination as a result. We examine whether the request played a role in the employer’s decision.

Termination Linked To Wage Disputes: Raising concerns about unpaid wages or overtime should not lead to job loss. If a termination follows a wage dispute, it may suggest unlawful retaliation. All the more reason to contact your wrongful firing lawyer.

Contact Us Today

At The Bloom Firm, we take a straightforward approach to these cases. We review the facts, explain your options, and help you decide what steps to take. This approach has helped us secure millions of dollars for our clients, and we’re ready to represent you next. If you believe your termination may have violated the law, reach out to The Bloom Firm to discuss your situation with a New York City wrongful termination lawyer from our team.