Question 1

Are you lawyers?

Accepted Answer

No. Fulcrum Employment Advisory provides employment advisory and negotiation coaching. We are not a law firm, we do not practice law, and nothing we provide is legal advice, legal representation, or an opinion on whether a clause is enforceable. No attorney-client relationship is created. If your situation involves potential legal claims, we say so plainly and point you toward licensed counsel in your state.

Question 2

How is this different from hiring an employment attorney?

Accepted Answer

An attorney is the right choice when you are pursuing a legal claim — discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage claims, or litigation. We are the right choice when you want to negotiate commercial terms: a larger severance payment, a narrower non-compete, a cleaner release, better equity treatment. We work on flat fees, we move in days rather than months, and we coach you to speak for yourself rather than escalating your matter into a dispute.

Question 3

Who actually reads my documents?

Accepted Answer

A senior advisor. We use AI to extract terms, dates and figures from what you upload so nothing is missed, but every finding is reviewed and confirmed by a human advisor before it reaches you, and the playbook you receive is written by an advisor.

Question 4

Will you contact my employer for me?

Accepted Answer

No. You stay the only voice in the room. We build your ask, your wording, your sequencing and your fallback positions, and we coach you through each round — but you send the messages and you sit in the calls. That is what keeps you in control of the relationship and out of an adversarial posture.

Question 5

How fast will I get my advisory?

Accepted Answer

Delivery is rapid and fully async — work starts as soon as payment clears and your intake is complete, and you receive your playbook in the portal without waiting on a meeting. Executive offer and equity work takes longer because there is more to analyse. Tell us the deadline you are working against and we sequence your case against it; signature windows come first.

Question 6

What do you need from me?

Accepted Answer

The agreement or offer itself, the deadline you are working against, and honest answers on the leverage you hold — tenure, performance record, what you know about the employer's situation, what you have documented. The intake wizard walks you through it in about ten minutes. Redact anything you would rather we never see; we do not need account numbers or identifiers to advise you.

Question 7

What do I actually receive?

Accepted Answer

A written negotiation playbook: the terms worth pushing on ranked by leverage, the specific wording to ask for, the commercial rationale behind each ask, your fallback positions, and the sequence to use. Where a statutory review window or notice rule is relevant to your state we flag it as context, not as legal advice.

Question 8

Can I ask follow-up questions after my playbook?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Message your advisor in your case thread and they will answer within the scope of your engagement. On a negotiation package, every round is already included — each counteroffer the company sends back is reviewed, your response is re-sequenced, and your advisor coaches you through it until the negotiation closes, with no additional per-round charge. Only genuinely new scope, such as a second agreement for a different matter, is issued as a fee addendum so you can see the cost before anything proceeds.

Question 9

What is included in a negotiation package?

Accepted Answer

Every round of the negotiation. A negotiation package is not priced per exchange: you get the advisory review, your opening ask and wording, and then advisor support through each counteroffer the company sends — re-reading revised drafts, re-sequencing your asks, rebuilding your fallback positions and coaching you before each reply — until the negotiation closes or you decide to stop. That open-ended, round-by-round commitment is exactly why negotiation packages carry a success fee: the up-front price is kept lower, and the rest of what we earn is tied to the increase we help you secure rather than to how many rounds it takes.

Question 10

How does the success fee work?

Accepted Answer

Negotiation engagements carry a success fee calculated strictly on the increase in gross base cash severance — the difference between what was on the table when you engaged us and what you finally accepted. It covers all rounds of the negotiation, so there is no per-round or per-message billing. It excludes equity, bonus, PTO payout, benefits continuation, and any non-cash consideration. If the cash number does not move, there is no success fee. Your advisor verifies the final figure, you get a review window to contest the math before anything is charged, and the arithmetic is shown to you in full.

Question 11

Are your fees refundable?

Accepted Answer

Flat fees are paid before work begins and become non-refundable once analysis or intake review has started, because that is the work you are buying. Before an advisor has begun, contact us and we will refund you. We do not bill retainers, we do not auto-renew anything, and we never charge a success fee on an outcome your advisor has not verified with you.

Question 12

Do you charge for extra scope?

Accepted Answer

Only with your signature, and additional rounds of the same negotiation are never extra scope. Genuinely new work — a second agreement, a different matter, an added service — is issued as a written fee addendum showing exactly what it covers and what it costs. Nothing is charged and no work proceeds until you read it and sign it.

Question 13

Is what I tell you confidential?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Your engagement includes a mutual confidentiality commitment: what you share with us stays with your advisory team and is used only to advise you. We do not contact your employer, we do not disclose that you are a client, and we do not sell or share your information. Note that advisory confidentiality is a contractual promise, not attorney-client privilege — which is one reason we route genuine legal claims to licensed counsel.

Question 14

What happens to the documents I upload?

Accepted Answer

Your uploaded files are permanently deleted 30 days after your case closes, and we email you a warning seven days before that happens so you can save your own copies. Before anything reaches an AI model we strip identifying details from the text. Your playbook, findings and invoices are retained so you keep the record of the advice you paid for.

Question 15

Can my employer find out I used you?

Accepted Answer

Not from us. Nothing we produce is filed anywhere, sent to anyone, or attributed to us. The wording you use in your negotiation is your wording. We operate as a silent strategy partner by design.

Straight answers before you engage us

What we do

Process and timing

Pricing and billing

Privacy and confidentiality

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