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Professional Services

Compliance Built for Professional Services

Most professional-services firms have the staff and some kind of process already. What's harder is making sure every complaint gets handled the same way: fairly, consistently, and with the documentation to prove it. That inconsistency, not a lack of people or process, is what turns a manageable situation into a claim you can't defend.

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The Professional Services Risk Profile

Consistency is the defense

Professional-services firms aren't an EEOC enforcement priority the way some industries are, but that doesn't change what the exposure looks like: whether every complaint gets handled the same way, by the same standard, with the same documentation, regardless of who's involved. When a claim does arrive, firms in this category often have the thinnest defense of any industry.

88,201
New EEOC charges filed in FY2025: no industry is exempt from the docket
Office environments file charges too; they just get less attention.
Source: EEOC FY2025 charge statistics
61.6%
Of all EEOC charges nationally allege retaliation
The claim that started small rarely stays that way.
Source: EEOC FY2025 charge statistics (Table E1f)
Least prepared
Professional-services firms typically carry the thinnest documentation of how complaints were actually handled
The exposure isn't frequency. It's proving consistency.
What's Different About Our Program

Built to extend the team you already have

Your HR generalist or office manager already covers benefits, payroll, and onboarding. Hybrid work, client-site staff, and manager-employee power dynamics are specialized problems on top of that job, and generic compliance content doesn't address any of them.

Specialized Expertise, Not Extra Headcount

Most professional-services firms already have someone handling HR, whether that's a generalist, an office manager, or a partner covering it alongside everything else they do. What they usually don't have is deep employment-law expertise or the hours to run a proper investigation on top of their day job. We bring the specialized piece, so your team spends less time on compliance and more time on the work that actually grows the firm.

Remote and Hybrid Coverage

Harassment doesn't stop at the office door. Slack messages, video calls, and after-hours texts are now routine sources of EEOC complaints, and most handbooks were written before hybrid work existed. Our training and policy language explicitly cover digital and remote conduct, not just in-person incidents.

Client-Site Protection

Consultants, auditors, and staff placed at a client site face a harder reporting environment: the harasser may not be your employee, but the liability still is. Our protocols cover documentation and escalation when the misconduct originates from a client's own staff.

Manager and Senior-Staff Accountability

In any office with a clear reporting line, junior staff are often the least likely to report and the most likely to face retaliation when the person they'd be reporting is their own manager. Training and reporting channels are built to reach the people who feel like they have the least standing to use them, and investigations are conducted independently so a complaint about a manager gets the same rigor as any other.

Our Process

From what you have to a documented program

We build on whatever policy, training, or process already exists at your firm. The path to a fully defensible program is still fast.

  1. 1

    Program Gap Audit

    We review your current handbook, training records, and reporting structure alongside whoever already owns HR at your firm. The gap report shows exactly where your existing program needs reinforcement, not a rebuild from scratch.

  2. 2

    Right-Sized Rollout

    Policy, training, and a real reporting channel deployed alongside your existing team, not instead of it. Built to save your HR generalist time, not hand them another system to manage alone.

  3. 3

    Independent Reporting Channel

    A confidential channel that doesn't route through a manager or the owner, critical at firms where the people who'd normally handle a complaint are also the people most likely to be named in one.

  4. 4

    Documentation on File Before You Need It

    When a charge arrives, and firms in this category are usually the least prepared for the first one, the policy, training records, and complaint history are already assembled.

FAQ

Common questions

We've never had a harassment complaint. Do we really need this?
Most professional-services firms we work with say the same thing right up until their first EEOC charge. The absence of complaints is rarely evidence of the absence of misconduct. It's just as often evidence of a culture with no real reporting channel. The Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense only protects you if the reasonable-care program was in place before the incident, not after. Building it after your first charge is too late to use it as a defense against that charge.
We already have someone handling HR. What would you actually be adding?
Time and specialized expertise, mostly. Your HR generalist or office manager is already covering benefits, payroll, and onboarding; running a defensible harassment-investigation process and staying current on state training mandates usually isn't their full-time job, and it shouldn't have to be. We take that piece off their plate: the policy, the training platform, the reporting channel, and hands-on investigation support when something is reported, all without asking you to hire a compliance specialist.
How do you handle harassment that happens over Slack, email, or video calls?
The same documentation and investigation standard applies regardless of medium. Our training explicitly covers digital-conduct scenarios (DMs, group chats, video calls) because most handbooks in this space were written for an in-person office that doesn't fully exist anymore. A written record in Slack is often easier to prove, not harder.
Our consultants and auditors work on client sites. Who's liable if a client's employee harasses our staff?
You are, if you knew or should have known and didn't act, the same third-party liability standard that applies to any employer whose staff work in someone else's space. We build documentation and escalation protocols specifically for the client-site scenario, including when to pull staff from an engagement.
What about managers or senior leadership being named in a complaint?
This is one of the most common blind spots in any office with a clear chain of command. The same seniority that makes someone hard to report also makes them hard to investigate impartially in-house. Our investigations are conducted by a neutral third party specifically so a complaint about a manager or executive gets the same rigor as a complaint about anyone else.
Is this overkill for a firm our size?
The Faragher/Ellerth defense and most state training mandates apply based on employee count, not industry, and several mandate states set thresholds as low as five employees (California), and Texas SB 45 extends harassment liability to employers with a single employee even though Texas has no statutory training mandate. Program scope adjusts to your headcount, but the legal exposure doesn't wait until you're "big enough" to matter.

Don't wait for your first charge to build your first policy.

The Affirmative Defense only works if it existed before the incident. The cost of building it now is a fraction of building it under a deadline.

Schedule Your Compliance Assessment Call 866.240.6618
Multi-State Operations

Operating in more than one state?

Training mandates stack by jurisdiction, with different thresholds, durations, and renewal cycles in each one. Our matrix covers seven mandate states, three city and district overlays, and Texas, with the statutory citation for every requirement.

See the mandate matrix