Editorial Standards

Source hierarchy

When we describe a workplace right, deadline, or procedure, we prefer sources in this order:

1. Primary statutes and regulations. The federal and state code itself, and the corresponding Code of Federal Regulations or state administrative code provisions.
2. Case law. Published opinions from federal Courts of Appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court, and state appellate courts. Trial-court opinions are used only when no appellate authority is on point and are clearly flagged as such.
3. Government agency guidance. EEOC compliance manuals, Department of Labor opinion letters, state agency procedural rules, and similar agency-issued interpretive material.
4. Academic and treatise material. Law review articles, employment-law treatises, and Cornell LII explanatory pages — used to confirm a reading of primary sources, not to substitute for them.
5. News reporting. Used only for current events (e.g. a new statute being signed) and always replaced by primary-source citations once the underlying document is available.

When sources conflict, primary statute text governs over agency interpretation, and binding case law in the relevant jurisdiction governs over general guidance.

What we don’t do

These are not capability limits — they are deliberate editorial choices:

• We don’t give specific legal advice. We describe how the law generally works. We do not tell any individual reader what to do in their specific situation. That requires a licensed attorney in the relevant jurisdiction.
• We don’t recommend specific attorneys for specific cases. Our directory lists employment lawyers; it does not match, rank, or vouch for any individual attorney’s fit for any reader’s situation. Selecting representation is the reader’s decision.
• We don’t accept payment to alter ruling display, ranking, or removal. Court rulings appear based on relevance and recency. No attorney, firm, employer, or other party can pay to suppress, promote, or change how a ruling is presented.
• We don’t accept payment to alter the law-summary content. Statute summaries and rights pages reflect editorial review, not commercial relationships.

Corrections process

We handle errors transparently. If you spot a misclassified ruling outcome, an outdated statute citation, a wrong filing deadline, an incorrectly attributed party, or any other factual error, please submit a correction at /corrections.

Corrections are reviewed by our editorial team. Verified fixes override the affected record and persist through subsequent re-ingest cycles.

Conflicts of interest + editorial firewall

Workers’ Rights is currently free for plaintiffs and will remain so. Future paid attorney subscriptions, when introduced, will be structurally separated from editorial content. Paid customers cannot influence ruling display, ranking, or removal.

Concretely, the firewall means:

• Editorial reviewers do not have visibility into which attorneys, firms, or employers are paying customers.
• Sales conversations cannot result in changes to ruling display, statute summaries, or any other editorial content.
• Any future sponsored placements in the attorney directory will be clearly labeled Sponsored and visually distinct from organically listed attorneys.
• Removal requests for accurately reported court rulings are not granted regardless of who submits them.

For the research and review process behind our content, see our methodology. For the full legal disclaimer, see /disclaimer.