Sometimes client will ask me if we go to directly to court in all cases or if we make a claim in the agencies they’ve heard deal with this sort of thing.  And that often it means the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or the EEOC.  And the state version of the EEOC is called the Division of Civil Rights and those are fine organizations.  The EEOC is operated pursuant to the Executive branch of the Federal Government. 

The Division of Civil Rights is operated pursuant to the Executive branch of the State Government.  The problem is they are not advocates for you and your individual rights.  Their job is to advance the policies that underlie the laws, not to advance your individual specific rights.  There are also certain kinds of damages they simply can’t request for you, and at the end of the day they are not passionate the way that your own lawyer is going to be passionate about your facts and your case.

They are very good there, they are very good investigators but your rights are limited, your remedies are limited and I always, almost always advocate going to court over using one of the administrative agencies.  The only exception to that is when you are dealing with a Federal defendant in which case you are required to go to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission first.  But you don’t have to stay there, you can always request a right to sue letter and then go straight to Federal Court under Title seven of the Civil Rights Act which is the body of law that governs Federal Defendants.