Federal Employees Legal Survival Guide: How to Protect & Enforce Your Job Rights

For Federal employees, the avenue toward protecting their rights is winding and sometimes, full of potholes. Now, the lawyers of Passman and Kaplan --- a noted Washington law firm --- have compiled a guide book that every agency employee will want to consult. This road map steers the employee onto the right path.

Which route, the MSPB or the EEOC? Or maybe both? How much time to file? What if an appeal is necessary? When should the case go straight to the judge? What if a security clearance is revoked? Theres even a separate chapter for postal employees.

There are two problems with many of the legal books on the market today. First, most books written about the law are targeted at management or legal practitioners. Few books explain the rights and laws that effect the everyday lives of ordinary people. The other problem that most legal books suffer from is that they are written in legalese, a cryptic language which is intimidating and verbose. The attorneys of Passman & Kaplan managed to avoid these problems in their new book, Federal Employee's Legal Survival Guide. The book explains the rules, regulations, and rights effecting employees in the Federal workforce in ordinary English.

This book, the second published by the National Employee Rights Institute (NERI), is a must read for any federal employee who has ever felt mistreated at work. At over five hundred pages in length, the book is comprehensive without being unduly complex, giving thorough coverage of such broad topics as collective bargaining agreements, health benefits, and security clearances. The strong point of this book is that it does not just tell employees their rights and leave it at that, instead the book provides step by step instructions on how an employee can act upon those rights. The book simplifies complex processes such as the filing of a complaint with the EEOC to a level that the average person can understand them without calling an attorney. Even more helpful are the appendices, which provide the reader with diagrams explaining some of the books more complicated subjects, and important forms that a federal employee might need. The book also provides several "tips" in each chapter that offer further insight on the topic of the chapter.

Federal Employees Legal Survival Guide is an invaluable source of legal information for the federal employee. The attorneys of Passman & Kaplan have done an excellent job in writing a book that federal employees can consult on nearly every work-related legal problem that might arise, from sexual harassment to special regulations for postal workers. This book is a worthwhile investment for federal employees who want to avoid going to an attorney unless it is absolutely necessary. -- Legal Survival Guide Speaks to Federal Employees in English-- Victor Roehm