Rob Montgomery sits down with Anthony LaPolla to explore the legal and cultural risks surrounding hiring, firing, and HR compliance. They break down real-world examples that show how small mistakes can lead to major consequences.

In the episode, Rob and Anthony discuss employment-at-will, wrongful termination, documentation failures, EEOC compliance, interview pitfalls, insurance protections, and how poor HR practices can expose businesses to lawsuits while damaging workplace culture.

In addition, Anthony LaPolla is the CEO of Empower Business Strategies and an HR and compliance expert who works closely with veterinary and healthcare organizations, helping leaders build compliant, documented, and people-focused workplaces.

Listeners who want to reach out to Anthony LaPolla can do so at www.gowithempower.com and info@gowithempower.com. Those who want to reach Rob can do so at Rob@RMontgomery-Law.com.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

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Bumper  

Welcome to the veterinary startup practice podcast with Attorney Rob Montgomery, where Rob and his veterinary industry guests seek to demystify the process of starting up a veterinary practice. Since Rob is a lawyer, we need to tell you that this podcast is for informational purposes only, and shouldn't be considered legal advice. listening to this podcast does not and will not create an attorney client relationship. As is always the case, you should formally consult with legal counsel before proceeding with any legal matter. And now, here's Rob Montgomery.

Rob Montgomery

Hello, everyone. I'm Rob Montgomery, and welcome to the Veterinary Startup Practice Podcast, where, as we like to say, we are seeking to demystify the process of starting a vet practice by bringing in experts, thought leaders from the veterinary world to talk about the startup process, what to do, and sometimes even more importantly, what not to do. Really excited for today's guest. Mr. Anthony LaPolla is with us. He is the founder and CEO of Empower Business Strategies, a strategic HR advisory firm specializing in helping organizations build strong people, systems, and cultures that support sustainable growth, with deep expertise across human resources, organizational development, and leadership strategy. Anthony partners with business owners, executive teams, and boards to solve complex people challenges with practical, compliant, and forward-thinking solutions. He currently serves as outsourced or fractional HR leadership for organizations across multiple states, and Anthony is also the co-founder and Chief HR Officer of Vet Pay HCM, the first payroll and HR platform built exclusively for veterinary practices. Through Vet Pay and Empower, he has become a nationally recognized advisor within the veterinary medicine industry, supporting independent practices, multi-site groups, and emerging platforms with HR infrastructure, compliance, workforce strategy, and scalable systems. He's a frequent speaker, writer, and thought leader on modern HR strategy, leadership, and the evolving role of HR as a business driver, not just a compliance function. We're happy to have him on the show. Welcome, Anthony, and thanks for taking the time today.

Anthony LaPolla

Rob, thank you so much for that kind introduction, and I'm super happy to be here with you today to talk all things HR-related.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, yeah, it's great. We get into HR in our office sometimes, you know, normally on the reactive side, unfortunately, when a client calls us and says, I've got this really serious problem, what should I do? So I look forward. Let's kick it back before we're like the house is on fire, so to speak, and talk about, you know, what most business owners, you know, do they have HR strategies? Do they not have an HR strategy? And let's talk about what that means and what our practice owners should be thinking about along those regards.

Anthony LaPolla

Fantastic. Yeah, to answer your question, no. A lot of the times, you know, when we work with veterinary practices and other organizations as well, it's very much very reactive, and instead of putting foundations in place from an HR standpoint so they can mitigate any type of issues or compliance issues that may arise in our organization. So a lot of the times we're getting called when it's actually too late, and that's when conversations start happening of, okay, this has happened, how do we navigate it, and then what type of strategy can we put around so it doesn't happen again, and then start building a really good foundation for long-term growth and success.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, and so when you talk about that, and it's obviously, it's really important, you know, what does it mean to be strategic when it comes to HR in a practice?

Anthony LaPolla

What it means, for at least us in the work that we do, is looking at the entire picture and including your people in that. And so it's not just benefits, compensation, PTO. It's what is the mission of the organization, what is the vision and strategy behind where the organization wants to go, and then it's including whether you have it or your finance or operations, whatever it may be in your organization, but incorporating all of those functions in an organization and bringing it all together with HR as essentially being that heartbeat. And so when we sit down with organizations, that could be a party of four employees all the way up to our, you know, one of our largest organizations that we support, there's 1,800 employees. We want to ensure that whatever we're doing or the thought behind your vision and growth strategy or growth mindset, that HR is part of those conversations, because 90% of the time it's the employees that are going to take you to the next level. Now, I know, you know, we can talk AI, we can talk technology, we can talk all these things, but at the end of the day, your people are still so important to that growth and retention and that famous word that we hear, culture, all the time. So from a strategy side, it's about having a seat at the table and ensuring that we can help support long-term growth and success.

Rob Montgomery

Right. And I think just for our listeners, I think an eye seizes on what you just said, and I understand what you do, and it's awesome that there's a difference between getting the kind of consulting and strategic sessions that Anthony is talking about versus a template handbook that, you know, you got off the internet or got from your payroll company that you just plug in the name of the business and, well, voila, that's my HR, that's my handbook. You know, every business is different. When you talk about the people, the type of people, the number of people, the culture, it's so important to make sure that you're working with somebody that is actually trying to capture what is going on in your office and what you would like to go on in the office. And, you know, let's talk about handbooks. And again, we're in this AI world, so, you know, whether it's AI that people are using or if it's just, again, the sort of the quote-unquote free handbook that they get. I mean, I see that oftentimes really is worse. I shouldn't say it's worse than not having anything. Well, sometimes it is. You know, if you're using a handbook that doesn't track, for example, what's actually going on in your office, you're definitely doing yourself a disservice.

Anthony LaPolla

100% correct. And I can't tell you how many times we hear from clients, you know, that either come on with us or that we talked to before the engagement that say, oh, we took our handbook from a friend of ours that's in this space, or we used ChatGPT, and it populated this awesome handbook. And so it's what's interesting. And I laugh because just last week we spoke with a client that ChatGPT'd their handbook and rolled it out to the organization. They were in Maryland, and it produced law for the state of Texas. Never went through and looked at it. So it was—

Rob Montgomery

Is that a problem, or, I mean...

Anthony LaPolla

It's a major problem, and it's mind-boggling to me because they don't even read it. They hold it up to employees, and it ended up—we hope that it's not going to end up in any type of legal issue because we caught it in time. But doing those things could be such a detriment to your organization, and by having, you know, somebody—somebody like our firm, somebody like yourself, Rob, an attorney, your legal counsel—to actually review those handbooks is so important because it's going to protect your organization from a compliance standpoint. But also, you have a human that understands your organization, where you want to go, and you want to convey that into your employee manual. And so AI is great. I, you know, I use it. I use it for things, but I don't use it for the things that could get you in trouble, right? So it's interesting to see where the world of HR is going to go.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, oh, the same thing. I mean, we see it in our legal world, too, with other things and with contracts. But I feel like for most people—and I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say a majority—before they even have to worry about getting consulting with their handbook, they need to read their handbook. I seriously, I think I'm being conservative when I say if I talk to clients, 50% of them have not read this handbook that's been implemented in their organization. Because oftentimes we'll have a conversation about terminating an employee or some sort of issue in the office, and I'll ask the client, “Have you read the handbook on this topic?” And they'll say no. And, well, you have to, because just if you want to handle a situation in a certain way, that's fine, but it's not okay if it's contrary to what you've laid out in this handbook that you've distributed to your organization, that you've asked all your employees to sign off as acknowledging receipt of, and then you just go off and do something completely different, which is kind of like putting a bull's-eye on yourself from a liability or a litigation standpoint.

Anthony LaPolla

That's correct, that's correct. And we also find, too, you know, when we ask the question, “When's the last time you updated your handbook?” Well, we did it five years ago, so we think we're okay. Law changes all the time. State regulations change frequently. And so just by updating the legal side of it is important, but also as your organization continues to evolve, you'll want to adjust some language in there, especially around benefits and time off and what's—what's the employee entitled to in your organization. You want to make sure you're staying on top of the updates at least on an annual basis.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, yeah, it's important. And again, what you've put in writing as being your policy—it's not really a defense to a lawsuit to come back later and say, like, “Well, we don't follow that written policy that is otherwise illegal,” right? Good luck. Good luck with that. And with so much of this stuff, too, there are very few problems that we see in our office, whether it's an HR issue or something that comes up in the course of the practice or after a transition. Very seldom do we see things that couldn't have been prevented before, you know, like easily, and it's just a matter of doing it. And look, no judgment. You know, I realize I have a professional practice that I own and run. I have to run a business. I have to service my clients. It's not easy to have a foot in both worlds as the owner of a veterinary practice and to be the one who's delivering the clinical services, who has to make all these business decisions and stay on top of these things. But, you know, getting help from experts and people that can take this stuff off your plate and get it done is crucial. And so you don't have to do this yourself. You just have to get somebody that can help you do it, because not doing it is not an option. You know, so somebody has to do it.

Anthony LaPolla

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we find, you know, especially in the veterinary world, that a lot of the times HR falls on the practice manager or office manager, sometimes to the medical director. But to no fault of the practice manager, office manager, they've never really had formal HR training. It's, “I've taken a seminar here, I listen to a webinar here. I might have taken maybe one semester-long class of HR.” But a lot of the times we find that they haven't, and they're researching, you know, online or using AI to find those answers. And a lot of the times those answers are not correct because it's very generalized. So to your point, Rob, it's that these clinics should not be embarrassed. Or a lot of times that's what we hear is, “Well, we're embarrassed to reach out.” There's no reason to be embarrassed. We want to help you. We want to educate you. We want you to be a strong people person in the sense of knowing how to handle some tough situations, and just from a basic compliance standpoint as well.

Rob Montgomery

Right, right. Yeah, like, yeah. And to your point, nobody should feel like they should be an expert in this thing. I mean, you have to train, you have to study it, you have to follow it, you have to be current, you have to read bulletins and releases and updates. Like, there's a reason why HR is a full-time thing. There are HR departments. There are people whose job is nothing but HR because it's just not—it's not a side hustle.

Anthony LaPolla

That's right, that's right. And we hear, you know, “Oh, we can't afford an HR department.” We totally understand, and that's why companies like ourselves and other organizations out there that are HR professionals can help when help is needed or hold training so we can ensure that the practice managers, medical directors, owners are up to date on some of these items from both the state and federal level, as well as just keeping up to date on what employees want, right? And so a lot of the times we hear, “Well, we don't know what people want,” when we talk about recruitment. You know, recruitment is another whole topic. I'm sure we can talk in full length another day. But, you know, staying on top of what's important to people when it comes to benefits, compensation, what's—you know—work-life balance. We hear that quite often now, especially post-pandemic. It's important to stay on top of those things, right? And so by having somebody that they can call on to say, “Hey, what are you hearing in this space?” or “What are other organizations doing?” “How can we be competitive?” It's important to be able to bounce those ideas off of somebody.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, yeah. So let's just kind of transition that way, you know, if we could now. Like, let's talk about, you know, when we're—what are, you know—what is a fractional HR person or CFO or CEO? Like, what are some strategies that people could realistically put into their practices to help leverage these resources that are appropriate for them from a scope, a service, and, frankly, a cost standpoint?

Anthony LaPolla

So from a fractional model, I think the word fractional is relatively new over the last five years. You know, most of the time we're consultants, right, and we still hear consultants, but fractional—the fractional model—has become a way of ensuring that you have somebody with the expertise that you can call on to either bounce those ideas off or issues off of that professional, or somebody that is actually managing the task. So, for example, we are HR advisors in organizations, and we give the autonomy to the clinic to call us whatever they want to call us—an HR generalist, HR manager, director, whatever you want to call us for employees—but we act as your HR professional. So if you have an employee that wants to talk to HR about an issue that they might be having with their supervisor or with another employee, they call us directly. And how we've developed this model is that we're not an 800 number. It's not a ticket system. It's a dedicated person that understands your clinic. And what's unique about it, too, is that when we talked about this right at the beginning, you know, payroll companies offer HR as, “Oh, well, we can handle your HR.” You're calling an 800 number to somebody that you don't know their credentials. They don't know your practice. If you have an issue with an employee two weeks ago and you call them again today because that employee has still not performed or improved on an employee relations issue, you're not going to get the same person. You're going to get somebody else that you have to go through it all over again. So when we've developed this fractional HR model, we said, no, we want dedicated HR advisors to be that person, and we fully integrate ourselves into the organizations. We're seeing this very similar from a fractional CFO model, from a financial side and from an operation side. It's built for companies that just can't afford a full-time person but need the support and help to get them through growth, to get them through day to day. And that's what we're there for.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, yeah, that's great. And just kind of going back to—we were talking about the sort of the 800 HR model, one-800-HR, I should say—I mean, we see clients come to us after they've kind of kicked around in those environments and gotten just bad advice, wrong advice, dangerous advice from people that just don't have the expertise, you know? And I think, you know, there are some things. There are some services that you may be able to get that kind of come with your payroll, and there are others that, you know, just aren't worth it, you know. And so sort of the cost of cheap or the cost of free sometimes can be monumental. And I think people fall into the trap to think like, well, I talked to somebody who called themselves an HR person—like, that's good enough. No, not really. You know, you need somebody who is actually good at that particular thing. It'd be like saying, like, you know, I took my animal to, you know, a bad vet. You know, like, they did a rotten job, but—yeah—but that's not what you're doing here, you know. Like, you want somebody that's actually going to be able to care for you and your situation and do a good job, not just do a job, you know, because that's the difference between being able to navigate a difficult situation and getting sued, frankly. And it could be for a lot of money.

Anthony LaPolla

Yeah, it really also comes down to the value. Having an owner—specifically an owner—understand the value of what you bring to their organization is very important. And sometimes we get, you know, especially prospect calls or people that we get introduced to, they say, “Well, I just don't understand the value that you bring.” Well, while you might view us as a cost to your, you know, essentially your bottom line, we're here saving you money from lawsuits, from bad hires, employee relations issues, compliance issues, benefit strategy. We see it all the time where organizations are paying astronomical amounts of money in the benefits world, and nobody has ever been there to advocate for what the organization really needs. And this happens all too frequently in the veterinary space, that there's a broker that they might be working with, and they just start giving them benefits because this is what they think they need. No. You need somebody who understands your vision and what your employees want, and then, in turn, help advocate for the right benefits, which then will help save money long term. And so that's where, when we meet with clients, we really express the value. Bookkeepers and financial CFOs, fractional CFOs, can also say the same thing—that do you want somebody who just knows a little bit enough to be dangerous managing your books and then potentially not coding certain items in your tax filings wrong and leaving money on the table? No. You want somebody who really understands the ins and outs of your software and is ensuring that you're maximizing tax reductions and ensuring that you're paying the right amount to the government. So it's very interesting, that model, but I think we're starting to see a term now, Rob, where that fractional model is becoming more and more important, and it's starting to pique interest, especially in the veterinary space.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, yeah. No, we see that as well. And I think just technology and how people consume consulting services virtually kind of allows this space to exist, where you don't have to physically be in an office to be able to provide value, which allows you to kind of check in in multiple offices on a part-time basis and, to your point, leverage that asset. And having that trusted advisor who understands your practice, your business, and is able to jump in when you need them, it's really, really a powerful thing. Anthony, you were talking about really using and leveraging HR to help attract and retain employees. So let's just talk about hiring people. And, you know, obviously a very important component of HR is hiring. And just like we're saying, you don't want to just hire anybody, but hiring the right people—talk about some of the mistakes and some of the gotchas and some of the things that may not be intuitive to our listeners about where people go wrong with that, mistakes that are made, and the cost of those mistakes when it comes to hiring.

Anthony LaPolla

Sure. So one of the things that we see frequently is the interviewing questions and the interviewing way of bringing somebody onto your organization. And a lot of the times, the interviews—the questions—bad questions are asked. For example, “How old are you?” “Are you expecting children?” And those are—

Rob Montgomery

You're not making this up either, are you, Anthony?

Anthony LaPolla

I'm not making this up, unfortunately, I'm not.

Rob Montgomery

Let me make this clear, listeners: they are not okay questions to ask. I repeat, you cannot and should not ask those questions. Make that perfectly clear.

Anthony LaPolla

Do not ask those questions. And it has gotten employers in such trouble and discrimination lawsuits all because of a bad interview and a bad recruitment model. And so when we look at organizations that are advertising on, you know, whether it's Indeed, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, or whatever it may be, you have to ensure that you're following guidelines, legal guidelines, on making sure your EEOC clause is in there so you're not discriminating against anybody, ensuring that whatever is required for the position that you're recruiting for. So if you're recruiting for a licensed vet tech, make sure you're calling that out in the job posting, ensuring that you're following state guidelines. Each state is different, but when it comes to salary transparency—so here in New York, you have to advertise what the compensation range may be. A range is not 55,000 to 155,000. A range is a specific set amount of 55 to 60, let's say, right? That's a range. And having that, you know, broad salary transparency doesn't protect you on what you could offer when that time comes of a job offer. Do your due diligence and check, you know, do background checks, ensure that—and I don't mean just from a legal side, but I mean from a background check on the employee, where they've worked in the past, how they've, you know, worked in other organizations, if they, you know, give you the authorization to do so. Because if you're having culture issues and if you hire just to hire, it's only going to make your organization much worse off. And so I always like to say, don't just put somebody in just to put somebody in. Really take the time to vet the individuals that you want in your organization. Take the time to go through what interview questions you want to ask. Always look at, you know, somebody's resume and being able to decipher what they actually did and call those points out. We're seeing a very alarming amount of resumes that are being put through AI and, in fact, are not—they did not know—those individuals did not do what they say that they're doing. We're finding that people are taking job descriptions, putting them into AI, and asking them to produce a resume. So you really have to be cautious and really do your due diligence as the employer or hiring manager to ensure that you're bringing in the right people into your organization.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, and that's something that you help your clients with—give them strategies and tools to be able to conduct better and more productive interviews.

Anthony LaPolla

Absolutely. We'll even sit in on the interviews with the hiring manager. We'll perform the pre-screening process to ensure that we, you know, understand what the clinic wants. By that point, we usually understand the culture of what the, you know, either the practice manager or medical director want. But we'll go as far as sitting in on those interviews to help guide and direct, especially if someone's not comfortable in the interview process. So that's where that strategy comes in. That's where the actual doing of the work comes in that we supply to our clinics that we support.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, I only just kind of take a—make a little U-turn, or I should say detour here—when we talk about hiring and firing. I think it's important for business owners to understand that there are certain insurance products that you can carry, notably employment practices liability insurance, that does cover you for claims of this sort. I've found over the years, Anthony, that a lot of businesses don't realize that that is an insurance that is available, or that that's something that they don't typically have unless they ask for it. It's not part of your general liability policy. What is your observation with your clients? People are coming to you—do they typically have that insurance, or is that something that you recommend or would have to recommend, oftentimes, that they investigate carrying?

Anthony LaPolla

Yes, to answer your question. We do ask those questions, and to your point, it's very generalized. It's usually not something that is covered under the general EPLI. And so we always recommend reaching back out to their insurance broker or their insurance company directly on ensuring that they're adding that. And so it's a minuscule amount of money from a cost of that rider to add that onto their policy versus what could really happen if there was ever a major lawsuit to the organization. So to answer your question, yes, we do. And we also evaluate other insurances as well to ensure that they are protected and covered and are in compliance, both from an employer and employee standpoint.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, it's very important. And a lot of times when we're having an initial conversation with a client about an HR issue, we'll ask them, obviously, because it's important, you know, do you have insurance for this? And the typical answer is, “I don't know.” And so, you know, you know you have general liability insurance, you know you have workers' comp insurance, you know you have certain insurance products, but this is one that, for whatever reason, is a kind of blind spot for a lot of business owners, and it should not come as a surprise. If you can't get that insurance when you have a potential pending claim against you, it's too late. So as part of sort of the strategizing process and the planning process, you need to know that you have this as one of the assets that you have to kind of deal with your HR, is that if all else fails, you know, you do have insurance. Because I think that when we talk about claims, I think a lot of people don't realize kind of how legal matters come to light and how they get tried, how they get settled. And I think a lot of times I've had clients over the years who are fine people, you know, they're not people that set out to discriminate or to do something that's wrong in terms of hiring and firing. But you don't have to be a bad person to be sued for this sort of thing. And frankly, your intentions might be fine. They don't have to be bad intentions, but it's the appearance of impropriety that gets you in trouble. So if you're doing certain things, or if there's a paper trail that makes it look like you're doing certain things, then that becomes the reality, whether or not it's what your intention was, what you set out to do. Ultimately, a judge and a jury are going to look at the evidence to determine what they think you were thinking or what your motives were. And if the evidence doesn't look so good, it doesn't matter that you say, “Well, geez, I'm not a discriminator,” or “I'm not a bad person.” It doesn't really matter, because when the plaintiff's lawyer gets a hold of this and lays out these facts to a judge or jury, somebody's going to say, “Well, sure looks like that.” And that is what the problem is—again, the appearance of impropriety, not what you actually meant to do or thought you were doing.

Anthony LaPolla

That's correct. And there are two things I want to call out here on that. Number one, when it comes down to leave of absences and what an employee is entitled to and what the employer is entitled to provide, I would say that is the biggest issue that we find when it comes to potential lawsuits and/or discrimination, is that the individual that's handling HR in an organization just doesn't understand the ins and outs of leaves and what's required, both from a state level and the federal level. And so when an employee issue arises and when it gets to that point of legal action, it's not because they were being harmful or that, you know, they were doing things on purpose. It's because they just didn't know. And it always happens around leave of absences. And so what we recommend also, too—and this brings to my second point—is, you know, document, document, document conversations. Document, you know, things that have happened, not only to protect you as an employer, but also so there's a clear understanding of what was discussed. No “he said, she said” without any type of documentation. So usually it's those two things—leave of absences, leave management, and poor documentation—that really get employers in hot water.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, that's my absolute—I've observed that as well. And years ago, I had a client that was sued for terminating somebody who had an alleged disability and said that, you know, she was a horrible employee, you know, and she came to work late and did all this stuff wrong, and arguments with the patients, and it was clearly not a good employee. And then, you know, Exhibit A—the plaintiff's lawyer marked it at the deposition and said, “I'll show you what's been marked Exhibit A. What is this?” “That's the personnel file for this particular employee.” And there's one piece of paper in there and not one bad job situation or bad, you know, employee action or anything in there that was negative, you know. And it's like, well, if they were so bad, why is nothing documented, you know? And that's where we talk about, you know, the appearance of a problem. It sure looks like you're just coming up with something after the fact, you know. And I knew this person, this client. I represented them for years. I knew that this is not the way they roll. But, you know, when that lawyer put that folder in front of them and said, “We'll show you what's been marked Exhibit A,” we were not in a good place in that case.

Anthony LaPolla

Yeah, you nail it right on the head. I can't believe we're actually talking about this today, but, you know, within the last couple of weeks, I had that same exact conversation with a CEO out of the veterinary space that wanted to move forward with a termination and had no documentation. And the employee has been employed for years—years, 10-plus years—not one bad performance review or, you know, anything documented up until that point. And you can't just terminate. And I think we can also probably talk significantly about employment at will and what that actually means. Yes, it just doesn't mean you can fire somebody at any time. There's a lot of gray area there. And so, you know, you want to make sure you're protecting yourself, even though it's, “Oh, well, we're an at-will employer, so we can just fire at any time.” Not necessarily. And what does that look like, right? So we get that. We hear it. We hear it too frequently—way too frequently.

Rob Montgomery

Let me just expand on that, because we do hear that too. And it's interesting you say that. You know, let's just talk about that for a moment. When you say that it's employment at will, yes, you can fire somebody, but you can't fire somebody for wrongful purposes or discriminatory purposes or illegal purposes. That doesn't give you this sort of, like, you know, blanket immunity from any claim because you were, quote-unquote, in an at-will state. I mean, you still are not able to terminate or not hire people for the wrong reasons. And regardless of whether or not it's at will, those laws get layered on top of that. So you still have to plan and make sure, like you're saying, Anthony, that documentation is right and you're doing the right thing at the right time. And sometimes I find that, you know, this is a planning thing. You might say, “I have a problem with this employee. They're doing a poor job. I want to fire them.” Okay, let's, you know, show me the negative reviews. Let's see the personnel file. There are none. Okay, well, now we've got to start, you know. So you're not going to fire them next week. You're going to have to start the process now, and it's going to be documented. And when you finally get to a place where you feel like the documentation is appropriate to potentially defend a lawsuit, then you can make that leap. But in the meantime, now we're going to have to go back, and you're just going to have to wait and create this paper trail or leave yourself open to a possible lawsuit. And these lawsuits are expensive. The legal fees are expensive. The settlements are expensive, if not absolutely insanely expensive. It's a matter of degree, and easily a dispute like this can be a six-figure liability if you don't have insurance. So planning to stack the deck, to try to put yourself in the best possible position to avoid litigation, but then to mitigate your damages, is something that's within your control. And documentation is a major, major aspect of that.

Anthony LaPolla

Absolutely. And we've heard, “Oh, well, we have insurance, so we'll just—I'm just going to fire him, and we'll figure it out.” Well, okay, you might have a really good insurance policy, or you might be in a position financially just to pay out and settle. But there's a bigger picture there. And the bigger picture is, do you want to be classified as an organization that just fires people? And do you know what that's doing to your culture? And if you're in a city, let's say, that's 100,000 people or less, usually everybody somewhat knows everybody and knows of your organization, and it affects recruitment. So it's more than just firing the person because you might not like them or they did something wrong one time—it has a longer-lasting effect on your organization as a whole.

Rob Montgomery

Yeah, yeah. It's true. Yeah, absolutely. The environment, the atmosphere, the tone is very much set by these types of decisions. It's really, really important to take that away. Well, Anthony, it's been awesome chatting with you, as always. If people want to get in touch with you and/or learn more about Empower Business Strategies, if you could tell our listeners how they can do that.

Anthony LaPolla

Absolutely. By all means, go to www.gowithempower.com—that's

gowithempower.com—or feel free to reach out to us directly at info@gowithempower.com

. And we're more than happy to have conversations with you just to help evaluate your organization. And we're here to help any step of the way when it comes to HR—any type of HR-related issues, compliance, foundational work, just getting you started. You know, Rob, we work quite a bit with startups. So I would say anybody who's listening that might be a startup or looking to start an organization within the next several months, please feel free to reach out to us. We would be more than happy to help.

Rob Montgomery

Awesome. Thank you. And everybody, as always, those links and email addresses and everything will be up on the show notes for this episode. And Anthony, thank you very much for taking the time. Thanks for everything that you do for the vet world.

Anthony LaPolla

Rob, I can't thank you guys enough. You're one-of-a-kind, and I am so happy that we were able to do this. So I appreciate it.

Rob Montgomery

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening, everybody.

Bumper  

Thanks for listening to another great podcast with Attorney Rob Montgomery. And don't forget to tune in next time to have the process of starting up a veterinary practice demystified. For more information about today's podcast, or to contact Rob's firm, go to "www.yourvetlawyer.com".