Sara H. Jodka, Of Counsel at Dickinson Wright, dedicates her practice to working with employers to anticipate, identify, and resolve labor and employment, data privacy, related compliance issues and litigation risks in today’s ever evolving workplace. Sara devotes a significant part of her practice to proactively counseling employers in litigation prevention and overall compliance with state, federal, and administrative laws and regulations, which includes reviewing and revising employee handbooks and policies; counseling management regarding termination decisions (including largescale layoffs/reductions in force) ; performing exempt status classification audits; and training employees on key employment policies and issues, including those related to leave, privacy, discrimination, harassment and retaliation, social media, the digital workplace and others. She routinely defends employers, in both state and federal court, arising under Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) (i.e., background checks issues) and comparable state laws. Sara also has significant experience defending employers in class and collective action disputes, including wage and hour litigation involving claims of allegedly unpaid meal/rest breaks; unpaid overtime; off-the-clock work; and exempt status misclassification. Sara also regularly handles charges filed with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and its state equivalents, OSHA, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In addition, Sara is experienced in drafting sophisticated employment agreements and policies, including executive compensation, non-competition, non-solicitation, severance and technology related agreements, such as terms of use, inventor, etc.

As for the ever evolving workplace, that includes data privacy, cybersecurity, social media, bring your own device, and other technology related issues. Sara has been at the forefront of these emerging areas and regularly advises clients on social media, cyber smearing, workplace privacy, and the management extraction, and authentication of electronically stored information, including social media and other digital evidence. Sara’s work in these areas has been so prolific. She has authored numerous blogs and presented numerous seminars on these issues. She has also been featured on NBC 4; LexBlogTV numerous times; in Columbus Business First, including its Book of Law; ColumbusCEO Magazine, and in various other media publications for her work in these areas.

So why focus on employment law and data privacy? Well, most data breaches are attributable to employee error, negligence or maliciousness. Proper training of employees; proper privacy and other policies; and other pre-breach incident, breach, and post breach measures go a significant way in reducing a company’s overall exposure. Sara knows that and she works with her clients to ensure they do to and that they know the right measures to take for their data, their workforce, and their employees.

Sara’s approach to working with employers is working with the employer's business as a whole, not just in working with the employer as an employer. Sara understands that the bottom line is that the employer has a business to run, and while employee issues are something every employer must deal with, the employer’s business decisions are largely focused on what is best for the business and the future of that business…regardless of if that business decision is the best one for litigation. As such, Sara understands that each business and each employer is unique and requires and deserves tailored advice not cookie cutter, boiler plate, one-size-fits-all documents, approach, and advice. Sara subscribes to the thinking that no workforce is identical and neither should workforce advice.