Hire, separate, discipline, investigate, or respond to worker issues with a state-specific action plan, risk ranking, and ready-to-use documents — built for hourly, salaried, and 1099 workers across all 50 states.
Small business owners managing hourly teams have two options when something goes wrong: call a lawyer ($400–$600 an hour), or sign up for a PEO ($1,500 per employee per year, 2-year contract). Both are overkill for most decisions. Counsel is the third option — a specific answer for your specific situation, right now, built for hourly workers, salaried teams, and everyone in between.
You need to document it properly before you can let them go. But you're not sure what counts as a written warning, whether you owe them final pay today or next Friday, and whether California's rules even apply since two of your crew cross state lines.
Except now you're learning that Chicago has a predictive scheduling law, New York requires a wage notice on day one, and your Florida location needed new hire reports filed within 20 days. You thought seasonal hiring was simple.
It's been 8 hours. You don't know if you're supposed to separate them immediately, start an investigation, or call a lawyer first. Every hour you wait is a potential liability. Every move you make without a plan is a potential mistake.
Counsel isn't a chatbot. Answer 8 questions about your specific situation — the state, the worker type, the reason — and you get a complete 7-section action plan. Not generic HR articles. Exactly what to do next, for your worker type, today.
Three sentences in plain English. No Latin. No statute numbers. What's happening, what the risk is, and what you need to do first — adapted for whether this is an hourly worker, a salaried employee, or a subcontractor.
Numbered, ordered by urgency, with exact timeframes. "Calculate final pay to the minute for their last shift. California rule: payment is due at termination, not the next payday." Every step written for your worker type and your state.
Every risk scored Low / Medium / High with specific dollar exposure. "California meal break violation: $1 premium per missed break per employee per day. If this affected 12 workers over 6 months, your exposure is approximately $4,320 before attorney fees."
The specific moves that protect you and the ones that expose you. "Don't reduce the complainant's hours while the investigation is open — it will be treated as retaliation regardless of your intent."
Pre-filled, editable, downloadable. Separation letters. Wage notices. Written warnings. Investigation logs. Offer letters with state-required disclosures. Every one reviewed by an employment attorney and adapted for hourly and salaried workers.
Actual boxes to check. "Final pay calculated including all hours, PTO, and commissions. State-required separation notice printed. Witness confirmed. IT access flagged for cutoff."
We tell you exactly how confident to be — and when to call a lawyer. If your situation is genuinely high-risk, we say "stop here and get an attorney." That honesty is what makes everything else trustworthy.
Not 500 generic HR articles. Twelve specific situations — each one built for the reality of managing hourly crews, seasonal workers, multi-location retail teams, and construction sites.
Offer letter, wage notices, new hire reporting — hourly or salaried, all 50 states.
Separation playbook, final pay timing, state-required notices, meeting script.
WARN Act check, selection defensibility, final pay for all worker types.
Performance docs built for hourly roles — specific dates, shifts, and incidents.
Harassment, discrimination, retaliation — 72-hour action plan.
30-day response, position statement, document preservation.
Interactive dialogue, undue hardship analysis, return-to-work plan.
Federal + state leave, eligibility for hourly and part-time workers.
Subcontractor vs. employee — construction and gig roles, IRS 20-factor test.
Overtime, missed breaks, final pay — before someone files a claim.
PTO, attendance, scheduling — multi-state aware, hourly and salaried.
Triage, document response, 72-hour action plan.
A chatbot tells you what the law says. It doesn't know your state, your worker type, or your specific situation.
Counsel gives you the pre-filled California separation notice your crew member needs today — not a generic summary of what termination law says.
A PEO wants $1,500 per employee per year, a 2-year contract, and your payroll. For a 20-person crew, that's $30,000 a year.
Counsel is $20/month, month-to-month. Use it when you need it. Cancel when you don't. You keep your payroll.
A lawyer bills $400–$600 an hour, takes 3 days to email back, and has never stood on a job site at 6am.
Counsel is instant, $20/month, and when your situation genuinely needs an attorney — we tell you, and we connect you to one at a flat fee.
No "contact sales." No custom quotes. No hidden fees. Pick a plan, use it today.
Solo owners & small teams under 10
Growing teams of 10–100 workers
Multi-location operations, 50–200 workers
Yes — and that's the core of what Counsel is built for. Every playbook distinguishes between hourly and salaried rules, because they're fundamentally different. Final pay timing, overtime calculations, meal break requirements, and wage notice rules all depend on whether your worker is paid by the hour. We get this right so you don't have to.
Counsel covers the situations that come up constantly in construction: worker classification (1099 vs. W-2), OSHA recordkeeping basics, subcontractor compliance, prevailing wage flags, and certification tracking. If your workforce changes by the project, Counsel is built for that reality.
Yes. Predictive scheduling laws (Chicago, NYC, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco, Oregon), PTO payout on separation, and final pay rules that vary city by city — Counsel applies them based on where your workers are located, not just your business address.
No. Counsel is a workflow tool that helps you take action based on publicly available employment law requirements. We don't provide legal advice and we're not a law firm. When your situation needs a lawyer, we tell you — and we can refer you to one at a pre-negotiated flat fee.
The Business and Growth plans cover all 50 states. When you run a playbook, you select the state the worker is in — not your business state. Each playbook applies the rules for that state, including city-specific laws where they apply.
Yes. Month-to-month, cancel any time, no questions asked. Annual plans are pro-rated refundable for the first 30 days.
Our rules database is maintained by employment law researchers and reviewed quarterly by licensed attorneys. When a state law changes, every relevant playbook is updated automatically.
Yes. All data is encrypted at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3). We do not train AI models on your data. Your playbooks are private to your account. SOC 2 Type II certification in progress.
Start a free 3-day trial. Run your first playbook in 5 minutes — for your worker type, your state, your situation. Decide if you want to keep it before you pay a dime.
No credit card. No sales call. No PEO. No lawyer required.