Measuring the Future of Employment Law Activity

I am on DOL's mailing list for their weekly unemployment claim report. Here's the one that came this morning:

In the week ending Feb. 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 627,000, unchanged from the previous week's revised figure of 627,000. The 4-week moving average was 619,000, an increase of 10,500 from the previous week's revised average of 608,500.

Losing your job is only one basis for an employment law suit, but is the most likely event that makes an employee go to a plaintiff's lawyer's office.

Of course most don't actually think about suing and most of those who do, do not have a viable claim and are probably told so. However, if you think of it just in terms of potential, just in the last two weeks, there have been approximately 1.2 million new potential plaintiffs created across the country.