HR BESTIES - HR Besties Happy Hour: Troubling Updates on SHRM

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Thanks for joining our mid-week Happy Hour, Besties! Whew, do we ever need it. In this Happy Hour: Spilling the latest on SHRM's lawsuit, the importance of holding each other accountable and a juicy reveal at the end... Quick recap and how did we get here? Troubling, troubling, troubling What lessons can HR professionals take from all of this? Your To-Do List: Grab merch, submit Questions & Comments, and make sure that you’re the first to know about our In-Person Meetings (events!) at ⁠⁠⁠https://www.hrbesties.com⁠⁠⁠. Follow your Besties across the socials and check out our resumes here: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.hrbesties.com/about⁠⁠⁠.  We look forward to seeing you in our next meeting - don’t worry, we’ll have a hard stop! Yours in Business + Bullsh*t,  Leigh, Jamie & Ashley Follow Bestie Leigh! ⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@hrmanifesto⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/hrmanifesto⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.hrmanifesto.com⁠⁠⁠ Follow Bestie Ashley! ⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@managermethod⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/managermethod⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyherd/⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://managermethod.com⁠⁠⁠ Follow Bestie Jamie! ⁠⁠⁠https://www.millennialmisery.com/⁠⁠⁠ Humorous Resources: ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠ Millennial Misery: ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠ Horrendous HR: ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠ Tune in to “HR Besties,” a business, work and management podcast hosted by Leigh Elena Henderson (HRManifesto), Ashley Herd (ManagerMethod) and Jamie Jackson (Humorous_Resources), where we navigate the labyrinth of corporate culture, from cringe corporate speak to toxic leadership. Whether you’re in Human Resources or not, corporate or small business, we offer sneak peeks into surviving work, hiring strategies, and making the employee experience better for all. Tune in for real talk on employee engagement, green flags in the workplace, and how to turn red flags into real change. Don't miss our chats about leadership, career coaching, and takes from work travel and watercooler gossip. Get new episodes every Wednesday and Friday, follow us on socials for the latest updates, and join us at our virtual happy hours to share your HR stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, besties. Special Happy Hour episode. Oh, gosh. Are we excited or what? We've got some updates, don't we? We do have some updates. Jamie, do you know what we have an update on? I think we're talking about SHRM today.

Yeah. Well, we're really talking about why H.R. is important. Yes. Yes. Why it matters to keep you out of bullshit like this. Good HR. Good HR. Good HR. Good HR. Best practices should be something that do more that live on a website. They actually come to life. And it doesn't always have to be best practices, but it should be decent practices at least. Decent. Yeah. Non-litigacy causing practice. You all know this. Having been a lawyer, having been in litigation, going through the Shirm lawsuit in particular is I told the ladies, on one hand, it's very hard because I no longer practice law and I don't really want to. But it does bring me back to going through PACER and these federal dockets. And

that's the website where you can go and access so many things. You can kind of see what's going on behind the scenes. And oftentimes it's just regular court documents because there's a lot that's exchanged between two parties and a lawsuit that you don't normally see. But when parties start having some disputes and keeping stuff out, you start to get a peek on what's been going on over the last few years. And we've got that today. And something extra special or interesting towards the end of the episode. Ooh, juicy. Lawsuit, BTS behind the scenes. Ashley, our resident legal experts, Phyllison. Just to set the stage again, so SHRM Society for Human Resource Management is being sued in federal court by its former employee. And this employee was terminated from employment over five

years ago. And only now is it set for trial just coming up in a couple weeks in Colorado federal court. And so these things take a long time. And this is all about race discrimination of this woman who was an instructional designer. So she was designing courses and working on that that Sherm would sell to the public. So she was let go from employment ostensibly for missing a deadline in the whole case is about whether that was really the reason or whether it was was driven by race discrimination. And that happens with a lot of cases in the U.S. like race discrimination. harassment, retaliation, those are the times of things that people can sue for. Because generally in the U.S., you can't just sue, like...

Someone's an asshole. Yeah, he can't. It's, you know, I've heard sessions where lawyers are like, you can be an asshole. You just have to be an equal opportunity asshole. I was like, well, let's just not be either. Yeah, it's not illegal to be an asshole. I think Lee said that, one of our episodes. Sadly.

It should be. But here in the U.S., things generally have to be tied to some sort of protected class. But so any, this lawsuit's been ongoing. And so part of why this lawsuit is so unusual is really two reasons. One is mentioned it's going to trial. That so rarely happens in employment lawsuits. Oftentimes these things are, that's when people sign severance agreements before, you know, if they're let go, like, before things ever get to a point or you file an EEOC charge, you file a lawsuit, all those things. But so here, and there's a point that the judge has the opportunity before this would ever go to a jury, but the judge can say, like, no, you know, one side wins without even having a jury trial. But here this is one where we've talked about this, when we're it, but the judge had said, this is a messy employment discrimination case, said that in writing first sentence of his order sending this to trial, because Sherm had asked for this to be dismissed before a jury trial. Not only did the judge say, no, I think that there's things that a jury needs to figure out what was really going on from a fact perspective, but the judge had also said Scherm may be liable for punitive damages in this case, which means, you know, people like,

how much really happens in touching? Well, and this one's interesting, and this is like, I'll get to the more interesting things, but in the U.S. you hear about Title VII, like Title VII is the kind of the employment law, federal employment law that has different protected categories. This lawsuit is really about Section 1981, and it's like, what's that? You can look it up, but a big difference between Title VII, because you can sue for racial discrimination under Title VII, but Section 1988 is just about race discrimination. Title VII has caps on damages, so there's like maximum caps that you can get. 1981 does not. So there's a lot more money potentially at stake. So that's some of the behind the scenes that's interesting here. But I'll just talk about a few things that have

happened because so this case is set for trial. And what happens as you get closer to trial, they had a settlement a couple weeks ago. That settlement was not successful. We'll explain later how we know that, but also in addition, parties are still going back and forth filing motions. That's how anyone can figure it out on PACER. But what's happened in particular is there's been some like discoveries, disputes and motions because there's motions in limine. You've talked about this a couple weeks ago. As you get closer to a trial, parties are like, hey, don't talk about this, do, you know, do this. Well, there's one in particular that's whether SHRM can introduce something that is, you know, not unusual. Like, have you all ever had exit interviews at work?

Yeah. Conducted them as HR, maybe had them, had them yourself. Conducted them. Many. So this has come up because in the lawsuit, so again, this is a woman who's suing Shirm, and there's all sorts of things you have to prove or, you know, and Shirm has to go back and forth. But her claim is that she was treated differently because of her race. And in this case, in particular, the boss over this department had four direct reports. Two direct reports were let go from employment, about five years ago, actually, like just within a couple weeks of each other, like a month of each other. Those were the two only black employees on the team. So already, like, again, this has been brought up as well in some of the documents. And so those that

are in HR legal are like two within like a one month period, both for ostensibly performance-based reasons. Like, again, that's something that tends to not weigh in it well in an employer's favor. But also that's unusual in this case is that the plaintiff actually got a declaration. So it's like a sworn statement. And the sworn statement was actually from a white colleague who filed a state saying, literally I'm reading from it, I observed the boss treat the plaintiff differently than me and my other white co-worker throughout my employment with Sherm.

And that's how it starts. So this goes on to give examples of things of like her, this boss disparaging the plaintiff's abilities, referring to her all these ways that the boss's tone was aggressive with the plaintiff in ways it wasn't with others, that this white colleague missed deadlines. And this is really notable because, again,

And Schirms' reason is that the plaintiff didn't meet these deadlines. And the plaintiff showed that she had submitted these two courses by the deadline. Sherms was like, well, they weren't enough. This person who did the affidavit finished them and had said it really didn't take, like I think she said, it took a week or two. But there's just a lot of things back and forth. And so some of this is just knowing the things that happen in employment, those conversations, using these tones, whether you treat people differently or other people say that you treat people differently. These things don't just happen. And they don't just happen.

And it's not just a risk of those coming on glass door. So this person has filed this legal statement paragraph by paragraph that's now public about this. Because also in it this person who did this affidavit, again, this colleague, I mean, and she talks about how she made, she actually raised internally concerns about the boss and how she treated this colleague, which having someone speak up for you during employment that she was speaking to other leaders and had participated in discussions with HR, for example. But so one thing that she says in affidavit is that she had shared that part of her reason for leaving is that she believed that the boss is racist. and because of what happened to the plaintiff. And that's what she said in her accident interview. The person who had her exit interview said that Shirm was aware that it had all had been reported.

And this is all in this like, again, this is like a publicly facing document. So this is me. I have nothing to do with, with Shirm or anything. Like, you can pay 10 cents a page and go get these things. But Shirm has now said what they want to introduce was a recording of that exit interview. What? Now, I was like, what? Because have you ever like knowingly recorded an exit interview?

you absolutely the fuck not. No. No. No. Record nothing like that in the office. Nope. My mouth is agape. No.

Do they even on their website? Do they even recommend that on their website recording? You know what I mean? Because don't do that. But the wild thing is, and the reason I know about this now is because often things like these back and forth, like that this declaration would likely be part of it. But so Scherm's saying, well, in the exit interview,

she doesn't say what she said she did in the declaration. And so that comes up to saying they're like, you know, this back and forth. But the wild thing about all this is that things with discovery, so like before someone files a lawsuit, they often have a lawyer letter and the lawyer letter goes to the employer and they're like, hey, hold preserve everything. Don't delete things and, you know, preserve everything and turn things overdose. And then in the discovery process, the lawsuit goes on, they're like, okay, now it's time for you to give us all the stuff.

You've been holding in a nice little tight basket. September 2020, plaintiffs fired. The charge was filed. I can't remember the exact dates. The charge was filed things like that. Anyway, lawsuit was filed in 2022, mid-2020, so it's my ongoing. The lawyers for Shirm only produced this recording of the exit interview in June 24.

So, like, lawsuits been going on for two years. Why so long, Shirm? I don't know, but so she'd had, it was an exit interview that she'd had with this, like, big boss. And so Shurm's lawyers are like, we want you to retract to this whole declaration. We want all these things, but also in the declaration, like, one of them, the point where she says she made the statements is not the person. person that the recording was with, so I don't know if it's like two exit interviews or whatnot.

But any, the point is, Sherm now has said that they're going to play this recording of this exit interview or they want to have that available trial. So the lawyers for the plaintiff are like, well, no, you didn't, you know, you didn't produce this during discovery, X, Y, and C, all these things. But anyway, the takeaway is they have a recording of exit interviews. To me, that was wild. Yeah, I've never heard of that. No, not a best practice.

Why do you want to keep, like, creating material for discovery? Especially when you don't know what you're doing as an organization. I don't know. Like, as the plaintiff's counsel says, and again, in these emails back and forth that are now part of all this production and attached to things, like the plaintiff's counsel is like, I find this disclosure. So this was 10 months after discovery had even closed. They're like, I find this unfathomable. Agree. Why so long? And this isn't even the craziest thing of all this. It continues. No, this is not the craziest thing. This is just such an unusual case. I haven't hardly ever. And I've done a lot of employees. I was involved in a lot of employment, you know, litigation things. And I'd never seen something. one where you have a declaration from like a white colleague about, you know, how I spoke up during my employment for, for a black colleague. I've never seen that. So I say, like, I'd made, you know, this longer video a while ago talking about these things and just how it's important to follow these things. Anyway, but so term has this exit interview recording. So the parties are

going back and forth. So as of the date, we're recording this, which is Friday, October 31st, happy Halloween. The judge hasn't publicly announced, which way, whether he would allow that, that audio recording in or not. What's update. On November 4th, the judge in the lawsuit denied the plaintiff's motion to keep the exit interview recording out of the lawsuit. So this is a win for sure. But this judge seems to have had enough of this case already, even before trial, because in it, he repeats the same line that he had in his order sending the case to trial a year ago, that this is a messy employment discrimination case. One other thing, just from a behind the scenes to give a sense of what employment lawsuits are

like and why you do not want to get involved in them. if you can avoid them. And it's not just to avoid liability. Again, as you go through and I've read so many pages of this, these depositions and all these things, just to get a sense of what goes on here. And it just, it's so instructive for so many employers because you do, you just read it. And you think, like, who would, I wouldn't want someone treated like that, someone I know. I wouldn't want to be treated like that as the plaintiff. And, you know, we'll find out what happens with this legality. But it's just the thing I always had a really, really hard time with being an employer side lawyer. And I had some cases where I was working on the employee side, but employer side was like, there's just, it's like, it's like when you're in an auto accident, you have the little thing

that's like, don't apologize or whatever, like insurance companies are like, don't say you're sorry because we don't want to be liable. And you're like, okay, so you hit someone and you can't be a freaking human. You feel like that sometimes in these contexts where like the lawyers are back and forth and there's so much of like, and again, whether it's illegal, like you don't treat people so poorly in the workplace. And when you do, it can cause risk. And so our point is in this as well is treating people like humans isn't just good because you'll avoid legal bills. It is so important and people don't need to feel dismissed or like their job has been taken from them when they're speaking up. So in addition to like in a lawsuit where you have to go back and forth and rehash someone's

employment, you're going through emails, you're having things that you wrote put up on screen. You are having people on an HR podcast that are reading through those and talking about those. But also you have to start getting into other people's things because part of discovery, and again, a lot of times with discovery, which is information, isn't made public. But in this, because of some discovery sputes and other things and motions and limine, some of Sherm's responses have now been public. And so one of them is the time when plaintiffs said, okay, how many employees were terminated for performance from January 1st, 2015 to the present? For those that have had to go through any sort of discovery thing and go through, it is like so cumbersome to go through and you're trying to figure things out and

go through records and all this. So Sherm, you know, has all its normal objections and things like this, but they go through and they're like, here are employees, and they're like, we're going to produce from January 1st, 2020 to the present, you know, whatever, like everyone, you know, goes back and forth the dates. So they've listed out 28 employees. So this is like public documents. It lists out their name, their position, their manager, and their department, and says, these are employees terminated for poor performance. Which again, I don't know terms total employer size, but just knowing, these are the things that happen in lawsuits. You have to go would not only find this information, you put it out there. And my guess is, and what can happen is

some of these, you know, employees that, you know, and obviously we're not going to cite anybody's names, but people may look at that and be like, what? Terminated from employment, like for a poor performance. Like, oh, that's not what I was told. Like, that's, again, not knowing any of these circumstances, that's what tends to happen. And so it's just, all of this takes up so much time and energy. Oh, thick. What was the time for him again? Like 10 years, right? Shirm has these objections like what matter you know what matters what doesn't so they said January 1st 2020 to the present and so this was this was within a basically three year time frame because it was January 3rd 2020 through December 29th 2022 so it's about three years 28 employees

terminated for poor performance I believe they have around 400 employees if you do the math I mean it seems like a semi substantial number of course they don't put race on there right that'd be interesting. Nope. Like if it's 50% people of color, but their total population, people of color is like 5%. You know, like that would be interesting. They don't, but interesting. And they've listed it by termination date. And these are the things like, again, having been in the world of lawyers, people will be like, how should we present this that makes us look like? Decent. I'm a little surprised, but maybe not because right next to each other on this chart are the two employees, the two African-American employees who reported to the same boss who were terminated less than a month

from each other. And so if it's me, I could see people being like, oh, like, oh, maybe we should do alphabetically. Write them out. And these are the things that lawyers tend to, like, the lawyers that are getting paid like now, like 1,500, sometimes more dollars an hour are talking about, like, what order should we list these to make us look? And so, again, it doesn't list any of that information. Anyway, it just goes to show, like, when you have these lawsuits, it goes back and forth, other people get involved. It's just, again, we talk a lot about terminations for performance. performance and everything like that, that there should be so many conversations before you're getting to the point of terminating someone for performance.

There should be unless you are racist. And it was a biased term that is illegal. That too. You know what I'm saying? That can certainly happen as, again, searches of other headlines of other employment cases can show you certainly has happened in other situations. And I think a lot of times, too, like when people are put on. on a performance improvement plan, a PIP.

A lot of times people like resign too, at least in my 21 years since I've seen a lot of people. So then you kind of wonder like how many resignation, like, were really targeted and, you know. Yeah. Of course, and again, these are the type of questions that often end up. So this document's produced and then you go into a deposition and people like, okay, lots, let's walk through all these different things.

What happens? So you're trying to rehash these things and whatnot. And in this case, in particular, again, the plaintiff that was terminated. from employment was not on a performance improvement plan. Also an issue. Just to keep in mind of behind the scenes, you get into things of having, you know, you may think something's all fine and good, but you never know who's going to come up with a declaration about, you know, a declaration about what they thought. They're raising concerns about things. You'd see things rehashed. But also as you get closer to a trial, you have to prepare for the trial. And so, you know, those that have been to jury duty, you may know that

You sit down, although people start asking questions. Sometimes it's like the normal questions, especially if it's like a car accident type case. Who's your insurer? Stand up. Do your name. You know, name this. No fun facts, sadly, in jury duty. But what you may not know is those questions.

It's very similarly, oh, gosh, I just thought of this. So Devil Wears Prada. Great movie, obviously. Remember when she's like, oh, Cerulean, you think you just chose this sweater. But this sweater has been carefully chosen from you by, you know, this. fashion for fashion, whatever. That's what those questions are like in jury duty. They are the cerulean sweater because those questions have been carefully crafted by each side's

attorneys and the judge deciding what's going to be asked. So the first step of that has to be, the different parties asking what questions they think should be asked to get the right jury. And that's called voir dire. But so each side had a deadline, and this went on the pacer docket as well, of the questions they wanted to see. And the plaintiff's questions, like I think that's seven, not probably not surprising. all about, like, have you ever been discriminated against, have your relative, things like that.

And these questions are really designed because in, there's federal rules and all this stuff in court. But it's designed because sometimes there's automatic strikes. Like, if someone's like, I know the plaintiff personally, the judge is probably going to be like, okay, you're not coming in. But there's other ones where you can kind of get a feel, and this is where's the sides you're trying to predict how they'll, what a juror will think. So they ask the questions to get a sense of that and who they want to strike. So plaintiff's pretty normal. Sherham had his flawed to your questions. Sherm had 32 variety of questions, but really a little more, because, like, one or...

They were, like, multiple questions, five questions. One, some of them have, like, two questions, and I'm like, oh, if so, what was, you know, this, or two, two, part B with the question. Yeah, so it's, we're in the, we're in the mid-30s, getting, getting a little towards 40, any, all these questions. And so I started going through these, and I'm like, oh, okay. So here are three in particular that stuck out to me, and they're under category. So under the category of views on employment, fairness, and management. Again, that's Sherm's lawyers are putting this. How important is it to you that HR follows every best practice step before termination? Coming from Sherm. Well, if I'm going to be terminated,

pretty damn important. Coming from the people that are leading HR professionals to make termination decisions. By best practices. They're creating processes. The irony. It's not lost. How do you say, like, no to that? Like, how do you say? I don't know. You say no to that question. Is the sky blue? I mean.

And again, you can kind of surmise that the reason behind that is, again, as you go through and like the judge's order really succinct, like, if you're only going to read one thing, if you go and look at, like, judge's order, sure, you can read it. And the judge points out these things that, and that's part of the reason the judge says that they're, you know, punitive, you know, put potential for punitive damages in particular, because of the way this was carried out. So I think a very certain argument that the plaintiff will be making is that there were not best practices followed. But so, anyway, one question that's an interesting to say, like, who's going to say no to that question?

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you call 1-86653310 or visit Commexonterio.ca. Another one that is a little interesting is under the section called views on discrimination, race, and retaliation. Question 19. Who thinks employees need to be protected

from mistreatment by their employers, businesses, or corporations? Another no-shit answer. I mean, they're just trying to load the jury with masochists or what? Yeah. Idiotic masochists. I mean, like, I think in the last year, I was a potential juror for an employment, very crazy employment case that I didn't make the jury panel for in partially because I had to answer yes to every question.

I'm like, have you ever investigated something I have? But I was very interested in it. But if I'm sitting on the jury, again, like, if someone asked me that, I mean, first I would be like, I would be quiet for a second. Protected for, who thinks they need to be protected? I'd be like, can you repeat the question? Did I hear that correctly? Yeah, what? I'm sorry. Right. Can I ask if all, like, does mistreatment exist?

Or do you think that if mistreatment's happening, they shouldn't be protected? Interesting. Yeah, so it's those ones of like, if you're on the jury, how's that going to? But here's the one that I saw this in my eyes popped out of my head. 16. Do you personally identify with the motivations of people who participated in any protests or demonstrations that took place due to George Floyd's death? This infuriated me. What's the point of that? Like, do you support Black Lives Matter? That's what they're trying to say.

Like, are you racist? So if you don't, then I need you on my jury. Is that what? Like, what are they getting at? I don't know. I mean, some of these, I mean, this is just like the behind the scenes of these things. And there are lawyers that will be putting these together. And again, this can be law firm lawyers, no idea.

Sure, I'm sitting there in the room thinking about these or this is just a law firm's lawyers doing these. I mean, some of all your questions come from a template. This, I mean, and calling it George Floyd's death as opposed to George Floyd's murder. Mm-hmm. That's intentional. Some of the background of this. So the plaintiff was terminated from employment in September 2020. So this was, you know, just in the months after George Floyd's murder. And there were discussions.

And some of the, like, I had gone back even to the plaintiff's deposition. Like, was there a claim that, like, she was taking time off to go to protests or things like that? And how does it tie in? Yeah. Yeah, no. Some of that scene, like, some of her raising her claims, she felt emboldened. I can't remember the language use. but like, you know, more emboldened in the heels of George Floyd's murder.

But anyway, like... Again, just trying to imagine me on a jury, a jury where this question comes up. I wouldn't be able to hide my face because I can't anyway. No, I wouldn't. Or my mouth, for that matter. I'd just be like, wow, what? I'd be like, the fuck. Who, what, where, when, why, and sometimes how. So what happens in these is, again, the parties submit what their proposed

voir dire questions, questions are. And then the judge, you know, ultimately they'll come together and decide what they're going to be. Judge, well, you know, is the ultimate decider of these things. But so these are what recommendations are. The judges, they're probably not going to have 50, 60, what are your questions. But it'll be fascinating to see what comes up. But so as we've been following this, one thing that happens periodically as well in addition to voir dire is some of these like, you know, pretrial conferences. Things getting ready. Like, okay, let's let's get ready. all these things talk about these motions in limine. And again, one motion in liminey that had come up

was Sherm not wanting any reference of its expertise in human resources. It's its whole business, but okay. Like, okay. Partially, one of the things Sherm wanted to do is they wanted to separate out the trial into two parts. First, whether they're liable, then whether it'll be punitive damages.

Part of that is because some of the potential evidence for punitive damages would be more about, like, Scherm's best practices and things like that. And so the judge's like, no, we're going to have all the trial together, the trial altogether, and also about, you know, their expertise and things like that. Shirm wanted to have that motion and liminey that there could be no evidence brought in. The judge had said, you know, kind of very briefly, that's not necessarily denied for now.

Like, he's not going to bar any mention of that because it could potentially be relevant for punitive damages for things. But again, it depends. Like, you can still make objections and all that during trial and, you know, get closer. But part of the reason that we know what the judge said in this hearing, is because if you go to PACER and see that there was a hearing and they talk through things, this transcript is not on PACER, but what was on PACER was like talking about how there was a hearing, you know, Grant and I, these things.

What was on one PACER is a note that said that the lawyer for SHRM orally made a motion for a gag order pertaining to communication with the press. Can I please read that part? So what happens in that is, of course, Pacer me is like, wait, what? And so, can you get a transcript of this year? I'm like, what do you mean? Orly made this motion. What's that?

And you can. You can, in addition to paying for PACER, you can, the member of the public or the media, like a podcast, you can order a copy of the transcript and find out what was said because I was like a gag order. Who's been talking to the press? And the answer is, Sherm thinks lawyers may have been talking to certain HR podcast. So ladies. Can I read that part for real?

Sure. So we have this transcript. that we got of the hearing. And I tell you what, I've read a lot of transcripts of hearing, but I've never read one where we appeared as a podcast. The judge says, what's the defense got? The defense says, thank you, Your Honor. There is one issue because just yesterday we became aware that plaintiff's counsel has been speaking to a popular HR podcast who has been covering this case in a manner that basically disparages Sherm in their position. In fact, During a very recent episode on this podcast, which specifically attacked proposed boy Dyer, did I say it right?

It's close. You're good. You're good. Boy, dear. All right, good enough. Questions submitted by defense counsel, the host clearly indicated that she had been in communication with plaintiff's counsel. To quote, she said the parties did have a mediation last week, but we've confirmed with the plaintiff's counsel that it is still scheduled for trial, so they are in communication. And so as such, it is clear that plaintiff's counsel is communicating with the media about this case, which is only part of the problem. The pretrial publicity is targeted. It's designed to, to shake the perception of Sherm's defenses as it goes into great detail about our motions and liminey topics, our specifically our Boyd-Dyer questions, the host of the podcast openly criticizes Sherm's strategies and compares them with those of plaintiff. Also troubling is assessing whether to issue a gag order, your honor, which is what the request is from the defense. We realize that it's a big ask, but the court should consider whether there is reasonable likelihood that media attention or extrajudicial commentary will prejudice a fair trial. And we believe here that is the case. And it keeps going. I can add a little bit here. Jamie, you want to start with

line 10? Yeah. This is still from the transcript. Now to give some context, this podcast, two of the podcasters, Lee and Ashley, have indicated that they plan to attend the trial every day, live. They're called and they have a million downloads. Yeah, that's us, by the way, guys. They've communicated on TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and what's troubling is the misrepresentation of facts and the skewing of facts. That is very, very troubling. They're clearly talking to the plaintiff's counsel. And there is a clear bias here against Sherm. And that is just troubling. And we want to bring that to the court's attention. Ooh, there's some things to respond to in that, isn't there? I know Ashley wants to. Well, I was reading this and I was starting to, but I didn't even

have to because the judge, he said, well, we'll turn to plaintiff's counsel in a moment, but he's like, you may not know the full answer to this. But at least the only thing I specifically heard attributed to plaintiff's counsel was a statement that the matter was still set for trial. And it sounded like that was the only piece delayed. I talked to this person. They told me whatever. Like, was there any other specific attribution? Lawyer for Sherm said, you know, what I confirm, it's very troubling. What jumped out was the attack on voir dire because the vaudeer process itself is attack. It cannot serve as a safeguard against prejudice. That was just really troubling, Your Honor. But yes, that's all I can communicate was, you know, the case continuing. Troubling, troubling, troubling.

So, of court's like, all right, let me ask plaintiff's counsel. So plaintiff's counsel, I mean, must have had that I have no, it must have just had this read. She's like, yep, Your Honor. One of the hosts of that podcast did reach out to us last week, and she emailed me and asked if the lawsuit had been resolved or was still proceeding to trial. And I responded, hi, Ashley, just to hear your name. It's been a minute since my name has been in a federal court transcript. Hi, Ashley, thank you for reaching out for your ongoing interest in the case.

As of today, the case is still proceeding to trial the week of November 17th. And that is the extent of our correspondence with these folks. And they're like, all right, anything else? to Sherms' counsel, the judge, she's like, no, nothing else. But so the judge talks about things. And one thing the judge gets into is like the legal equivalent of it's not that deep. Like, I know, Sherm, you probably don't like this. And so first, the judge is basically like, I, you know, a gag order, you know, I've had

cases that have had like, national publicity. And we've still been able to say that a jury just fine. We're good here. I mean, they're also like, you know, this case is publicly available. Anybody who wants to pony up the money for a PACER account can see it. You know, and then said, you know, I take it at work. the plaintiff's counsel's response was limited. Like, this seems to be totally fine within the rules of civil procedure.

You know, I've heard nothing else. And I hear you, but so denied the gag order to end it there. But I did not expect, of all of our coverage of Shirm, and again, our coverage is because this is sure. I mean, this is notable. It's Shirm. Shirm's touts itself as the expert of all things work, but I did not expect when I got this transcript.

Wow. Oh. I mean, I made T-shirts, y'all. I love it. Let's see. How many times does the word troubling show up in this? in this transcript six, six, six times because we're troubling. All in the same section. To your point, Ash, I love when the judge says this, he's like,

and this is not in any way to disparage or diminish this case, but when I look at this case in comparison with others that have received extensive nationwide media attention, and there are many of those, we are able in those cases to cede a jury. We are able to find nine or 12 jurors, as it may be or more, that have read and seen nothing about the matter. And we are able to prophylactically insulate them from the matters during the course of trial. I love prophylactically insulate for real. Could you think of that word on the fly? I don't think, if you were to search the transcripts of all of our... No, because I just think of like a condom. Yeah. Yeah, that's what he's saying. I learned of that word 100% from a snoop dog.

song back in the day. Like, I'm pretty sure back in the day. Like, I'm pretty sure that's the lyric. But if you were to search, like, every transcript of H.R. Bassies, I never could think if I were on the flight. That's these, these federal judges, they're, you know, they got their stuff together, obviously. Love. But I will say this. And we'll talk, you'll talk to this hand. But one thing, all this stuff, like this is, you know, slanted and things like that. Criticism. Criticism of best practices of someone that is a best practice organization. Creator of best practices. A creator of this is fair. And it.

It is from our perspective the right thing to do. Just on our, you know, episode last week talked about when we did things. We've made mistakes at work. Nobody's perfect. But it is important to spotlight these things. I mean, I made, I have gone to great lengths. I don't go through the docket because I'm like, sure. I'm like, wow, this is really notable.

And there's so many missteps. That's why I made a really long YouTube video with timestamps last year on this, because there's so many lessons here. But also people don't tend to see a peak of this. And part of what we do in our podcast is talk about experiences at work, talk about HR, So really what goes on in these lawsuits? And so I actually take personally very seriously to not, you know, skew or misrepresent things.

I take great care to do that and talk about what's in the docket again, because something's in a declaration that somebody says that could be their perspectives. But we have repeatedly cited from that. I have paid a very hefty pacer bill. And I've ponied up for a very hefty pacey. But because of the things that really, really I don't care for that we'll set the record straight on the podcast is I reached out to play. Council to ask, to ask that that question, literally, you know, let me, you know, whatever,

whatever was said. But I don't even need to pull that up because I actually also emailed this same attorney for SHRM that was making this argument in federal court and had said, hey, I'm one of the co-hosts at H.R. Bessie's podcast. Same. We've been covering the lawsuit in Colorado District Court. We want to ask for any comment on the status of the lawsuit and whether it's been resolved or whether it's still proceeding to trial in November. Thank you, Ashley, you know, that's it. Like, we're just trying to get the comment. And so, first of all, I got that, did not get a response. We also reached out, I also, on that HR Besties, reached out to Sherm's PR, just asking

generally about the status of the lawsuit and about some of the things that we've heard from comments and in messages from those at Sherm because we also want to give them an opportunity to be like, no, you got this wrong. And so anyway, so yes, we reached out to plaintiff's counsel to literally ask if the trial was continuing. We have not had some secret troubling, you know, back and forth communication. Our role is not to get involved in a lawsuit. It is to shine a light on something that a lot of employers, a lot of managers do on a day-to-day basis,

and it's important to have accountability for that. And if we didn't cover it, I mean, to me, we wouldn't be doing the job that we want to do on the podcast. So that's something that I think is very important to clarify. And it's especially important to people like us because SHRM claims to represent us in our chosen function field profession. And, you know, they poise and posture themselves as this leading, you know, organization on all things work, right? And they should be held to a very high regard because of that, right? They should be held accountable.

They should have the light shown on them when they're doing things great and especially when they're not. doing things so great. So I think that's really, really important because this is very personal to us and what we do. And they really set the tone and the reputation for our function. And it's troubling, quite frankly. Did you all have Sherm bringing up the HR Besties podcast in a federal lawsuit in your 2025 bingo card? No, but I'm honored. I did not, but it's fucking iconic. Are you kidding me. Well, from the legal perspective, like, wow, what is someone supposed to do? I talked this over with my mom, who's, of course, went to law school later in life. So she was like, oh, my goodness. But so, I was like, that's so interesting because they'd filed a motion in limine and things

like that. And I was like, I bet they didn't file a motion on the docket because they're like, oh, we would have seen that straight away. I wonder if that's why they filed an oral motion. You know, we'll see. But of course, we have the transcripts. We can, now we have the transcripts. We can see this. But also in it, like, we just found out yesterday. And one of the of their episodes they talked about, we had not talked about for a year yet. I made a TikTok on the HR Besties about that. So it's also some clarification if you feel like you missed one. No, no, we're covering that this week. Stay strong plaintiff. I don't know them. I've never talked to them. Let the record show, you know, but I love a justice warrior. I think it's time. I think good

change can come from this big time. It'll be interesting to watch, watch the docket. You know, I've got my eye and my debit card on the docket. So. Mm-hmm. Can't wait to see you in Colorado. It'll be good, right? It'll actually probably be really boring because a lot of lawsuit things are really boring. I know. Just to set the record straight, but some of the stuff. But just, again, to hear our coverage is all about shining also a light on things that can

really happen at work and can even happen to, you know, the biggest HR organization in the world. So learn lessons from others. That's something that, you know, we don't always do enough. That's how we get better, right? Damn. Hmm. Best of luck to all involved. And bless that pacer, Bill. It doesn't need blessings. It's like a gremlin. It grows overnight.

Feel free to like cash app or Venmo Ashley. I know, right? You can say it's for a drink because we're going to be in Vegas when this airs. That's true. We'll be together. Together when this one airs. That's true. In our traveling T-shirt.

Oh, gosh.