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ADVICE, ACTION, RESULTS
David Blanchard and Angela Walker have served Ann Arbor’s employees and business community for over ten years.
Every client deserves to be heard.
David Blanchard and Angela Walker have worked together for over ten years to provide high quality and timely responses to the emerging legal needs for individuals and businesses in Ann Arbor and Southeast Michigan.
Angela Walker provides advice and advocacy for employees facing discrimination at work, fighting a wrongful termination, or being denied compensation and benefits to which they are entitled.
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David Blanchard focuses on helping people get back to work, stay at work, fighting wage theft, and preventing retaliation and wrongful termination.
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Frances Hollander joined Blanchard & Walker in 2018 after working at the Michigan Court of Appeals. Frances received her B.A. in linguistics from the University of Michigan in 2013.
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As of April 13, 2020, the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency has begun accepting applications for the broadest category of potential recipients under federal law reforms related to the COVID-19 pandemic.Under the various federal reforms, most Michigan workers who face job loss as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic should be eligible to receive unemployment benefits including a $600 per week federal supplement on top of basic benefits regularly provided by the state system. (more…)
In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Azanean Petty was forced to choose between her safety and her job at the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility when her employer denied her request to wear a protective mask while working in an environment with insufficient sanitation measures and inadequate social distancing. Ms. Petty was forced to hand in her resignation after she spoke up about safety concerns and refused to work without a mask for the protection of herself, the juvenile detainees, and the other employees in the facility.
Her attorney Angela Walker filed the Whistleblower Lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court. “Although the facility had apparently received N-95 masks for their employees, they told my client she was not allowed to wear it inside where the inmates are housed (more…)
The COVID-19 Outbreak is presenting many challenges for the Michigan workplace. Yet the law and circumstances are changing almost daily. We are regularly monitoring and updating workplace rights resources we have found helpful. We are updating this material as it becomes available. Keep in mind this is not intended to be legal advice. Legal rights in any individual case need to be evaluated in consultation with an attorney.
As of April 13, 2020, the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency has begun accepting applications for the broadest category of potential recipients under federal law reforms related to the COVID-19 pandemic. (more…)
Racial discrimination refers to the practice of treating individuals differently because of their race or color. Federal law prohibits race discrimination in the workplace and incidents of race discrimination can take many forms, in the workplace particul
Read More »Legions of undocumented immigrants in the United States carry letters signed by their employers stating that President Donald Trump's administration considers them essential workers amid the pandemic. While these letters exempt them from being arrested by local agents for violating stay-at-home orders, these workers could still be detained and deported by federal authorities.
Read More »It's part of the U.S.'s long history of xenophobia. And in particular, it highlights the ways in which immigrants have often been tied to disease. As a plague, or as an invasive threat or as carriers of a contagion and disease that will then ruin the United States. We've heard this before and unfortunately, we're hearing it again today… So the public health concerns and the rhetoric around immigrants and disease, what it does is that it helps to — it feeds and then it justifies existing stereotypes and racism around immigrants. And then leads to discriminatory public health policies that disproportionately impact specific immigrant groups and minority groups.
–Erika Lee, immigration and Asian American historian | Professor at the University of Minnesota
from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Unemployment Rate: