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(201) 525-0025

Employment Lawyer in Hackensack, NJ

Standing up for employees facing unfair treatment at work

Hackensack Workers Have More Leverage Than They Realize

Most people arrive here certain that something was wrong, but unsure whether it was actually illegal. Those are different questions, and the gap between them is where claims are won and lost. An employment lawyer in Hackensack, NJ can usually tell you which side of that line you are standing on inside a single conversation.

Cowen & Jacobs has spent more than 35 years doing that work from an office in the middle of Hackensack. The people we represent staff the hospitals and medical practices in and around Teaneck, keep county and city departments running, and fill the professional offices downtown.

Signs It Is Time to Call an Employment Attorney

Call before you sign, not after. The moments that warrant it are usually recognizable:

A severance or separation agreement lands on your desk
Discipline or a sudden bad review follows a complaint you made
A leave or accommodation request turns into a performance conversation
Your title changes and the overtime quietly stops
HR asks you to put your version of events in writing

Resigning instead of making the employer fire you, signing a release to free up a final paycheck, or letting a deadline run while an internal complaint sits open can each end a claim without anyone saying so. So can the question of where you actually work. Someone crossing at Fort Lee to a Manhattan employer can lose the NJLAD’s longer filing window and its uncapped damages before anyone looks at the facts.

Trusted by Families Across Bergen County

Where We Step In

Claims rarely arrive one at a time. A single termination can carry a discrimination claim, a retaliation claim, and unpaid commissions all at once, so we map the whole thing before recommending anything.

Discrimination on the Job

Being sidelined, demoted, or let go because of your race, age, gender, disability, pregnancy, religion, or sexual orientation is actionable in New Jersey even at employers too small for federal law to touch. We build discrimination claims out of what the record shows: who else was treated differently, what the timing was, and what the employer wrote down.

Harassment and Hostile Work Environments

Harassment rarely lives in one incident. It accumulates through comments, exclusion, messages sent after hours, and the reaction you get when you finally report it, and New Jersey measures the whole pattern. We handle workplace harassment matters, including cases where HR ran an investigation and then did nothing with it.

Retaliation After You Spoke Up

CEPA protects employees who report conduct they reasonably believe is illegal or unsafe, including reports made only inside the company. The evidence usually sits in what changed afterward, which is why whistleblower retaliation claims from warehouse and plant workers around Garfield so often turn on a sudden shift change or a first-ever write-up.

Firings That Cross the Line

At-will employment is not a blank check. A termination that lands shortly after a complaint, a medical leave, or a refusal to do something improper deserves a hard look at the sequence of events. We also take on unemployment appeals when a denial follows a separation the employer has mischaracterized.

Unpaid Wages, Overtime, and Misclassification

The most common wage case we see is a salaried title used to avoid paying overtime that was genuinely owed. Retail and service staff along the Paramus shopping corridor bring us these regularly, alongside off-the-clock work, shaved break time, and commissions the employer keeps after a resignation.

Severance Offers and Compensation Disputes

A severance number is an opening position, not a verdict. We look at what the release is actually buying, then negotiate around unpaid bonuses, unvested equity, and continued benefits, which is where most of the real money sits for staff at the corporate offices in Englewood Cliffs and similar employers.

Non-Competes, NDAs, and Offer Letters

The terms that cause trouble two years from now are the ones nobody reads on day one. We go through restrictive covenants, confidentiality language, clawbacks, and arbitration clauses before you sign, and we assess enforceability when a former employer starts sending letters.

Leave Denials and Accommodation Refusals

An employer that interferes with FMLA leave, refuses a reasonable accommodation, or treats a request as a performance problem has created its own claim. These almost always come to us attached to something larger, usually a termination that followed the request.

What the Next Few Months Actually Look Like

A first meeting you can reach on a lunch break. Our Court Plaza South office is a short walk from the Justice Center, so most people handle this in person rather than over the phone. It costs nothing, and nobody is asked to retain a lawyer on the spot.
Records that depend on who signs your paycheck. A nurse’s case is built from charting timestamps and shift logs, a county employee’s from a civil service file, a retail manager’s from scheduling software the employer would rather not produce. We tell you which of these to pull before your access is shut off.
Deadlines set by your employer’s status, not just the statute. Public agencies here add notice requirements and internal grievance steps that private employers do not have, and CEPA’s one-year window runs shorter than most people assume. We fix every date at the outset.
Choosing between three forums. Bergen Vicinage, the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, or the EEOC’s Newark District Office each carry different timelines, different damages, and different odds on your facts. That choice is made deliberately, not by default.
Filing in the courthouse next door. If the employer will not move, your case is heard at the Justice Center, in front of judges the firm has practiced before since 1981. Sara Jacobs arbitrated in that building for fourteen years, which tells us early what a neutral there will do with your file.

The Statutes Behind a New Jersey Employee Claim

An employer here can end your job for a bad reason or no reason. What it cannot do is end it for a prohibited one, and the difference is defined by a handful of statutes:

NJLAD. Broader than its federal counterpart. No employee-count threshold, a two-year window to file, and uncapped damages in the right case.
CEPA. New Jersey’s whistleblower statute, with one of the widest definitions of protected reporting in the country. The window is one year, which passes faster than people expect.
Wage and Hour Law and Wage Payment Law. Overtime, minimum wage, and earned compensation, reaching back as far as six years.
Diane B. Allen Equal Pay Act. Equal pay for substantially similar work across any protected class, with back pay available for up to six years.

FMLA, the ADA, the ADEA, and the Fair Labor Standards Act sit alongside these and sometimes offer a better forum. Both NJLAD and CEPA also make the employer pay your legal fees when you win, which is why claims worth pursuing are not limited to the ones with large lost-wage figures.

What a Firm Down the Street From the Courthouse Brings

These cases are resolved by a small, familiar cast: a few employer-side firms, a short list of neutrals, and the judges in the Law Division a few doors from this office. What your claim is worth depends on how that group reads your file, and we have worked among them since 1981.

We have faced these opponents before. The employer-side bar here is small enough to know by name, including which firms settle at mediation and which only move once a trial date becomes real.
One of us has decided cases like yours. Sara Jacobs arbitrated at Bergen County Superior Court for fourteen years and co-chaired the county’s ADR Committee, so the neutral assigned to your matter is rarely someone new to us.
Four decades inside that same Law Division. Barbara Cowen clerked there in 1981 and now sits on a Bergen County Ethics Committee, which is a long time to learn how local scheduling, motion practice, and settlement conferences actually run.
No Bergen County employer is our client. No hospital system, school district, or municipal department sits on the other side of our ledger shaping what we advise you to accept.
4.8 stars from more than 50 clients. Worth reading before you call any firm in this county, including ours.

Questions We Field From Hackensack Workers

My employer is here but I live outside Bergen County. Does that change anything?

Not much. Venue generally follows the employer’s place of business or where the conduct happened, so a Hackensack employer usually means a Bergen County case regardless of your home address.

Is a small Hackensack office too small to sue for discrimination?

No. Title VII generally needs 15 or more employees, but the NJLAD has no such floor. A five-person practice is covered the same as a hospital system.

I work for a public agency. Is the path different?

Usually. Public employment adds notice requirements, internal grievance procedures, and in some cases far shorter deadlines, and skipping a required step can sink an otherwise strong claim.

Can a hospital discipline me for reporting a patient safety issue?

Not lawfully. CEPA covers healthcare workers who report care they reasonably believe is improper or unsafe, and that protection applies even when the report never leaves the building.

My unemployment claim was denied after I was fired. Is that final?

No. Denials are appealable on a short deadline, and the employer’s stated reason in that proceeding often contradicts what it told you, which can matter in a separate claim.

Contact Our Legal Team Today

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Our Employment Law Attorneys

Barbara E. Cowen

Barbara E. Cowen clerked in the Law Division of Bergen County Superior Court, was admitted in 1981, and has practiced in these courts since. Four decades of litigation beyond employment help when a workplace case carries a contract, defamation, or benefits problem attached. She sits on a Bergen County Ethics Committee and belongs to the New Jersey State Bar Association.

Sara Jacobs

Admitted in New Jersey in 1984, Sara Jacobs carries the firm’s employment docket, from discrimination and retaliation through severance and restrictive covenant disputes. She spent fourteen years arbitrating at Bergen County Superior Court, co-chaired the county’s ADR Committee, and holds an LL.M. from NYU School of Law. She has spent longer deciding disputes than most lawyers spend arguing them, and applies that read to your file in the first week.

Have You Signed Anything Yet? Wait.

Severance paperwork is drafted by the people on the other side of your dispute, and the deadline printed on it is theirs, not yours. One free conversation will tell you what the document gives away and what your claim might be worth instead. Call (201) 525-0025 or book a consultation online.

We are here for you and ready to help you resolve your legal issue. For a consultation discussing your case, call Cowen & Jacobs today.

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