Mikel & Hamill PLLC

Who the firm represents

The clients here are employees, and the work centers on their disputes with an employer. Mikel & Hamill PLLC is an employment law firm in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and it represents workers in the city and across East Tennessee. The subjects run to workplace discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and questions about pay and compensation.

That client focus shapes how the firm reads a case. A worker often comes in after a firing or a denied accommodation, and the firm builds the matter from that person's position. Staying on the employee side of employment law also keeps the two lawyers close to one body of statutes and one set of courts. In my opinion, that kind of concentration tends to show in how quickly a firm can size up a new claim.

The workplace problems it takes on

Discrimination sits at the center of the caseload, and the firm lists the grounds it covers. Those are age, disability, gender, national origin, race, and religion. Sexual and other forms of harassment fall under the same heading, and so do retaliation and whistleblower protection for workers who report wrongdoing and then face consequences for it. A retaliation claim often travels with the original complaint, since the response to a report can become its own violation.

Pay and compensation make up another share of the work, including unpaid wages and disputes over what an employer owed. The firm also handles disability accommodations, termination and severance questions, and non-compete and other agreements. A severance review can catch terms a departing worker would otherwise sign without notice, and a non-compete can decide whether someone can take the next job at all. Any one of these can arrive on its own, and several can knot together inside a single case.

The statutes behind the cases

Employment claims rise or fall on which law applies, and the firm names the ones it works under. The federal list runs to Title VII, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and USERRA. Tennessee state law rounds out the set.

Each statute governs a different corner of the job. Title VII bars discrimination by protected class, the Fair Labor Standards Act sets wage and overtime rules, and the Family and Medical Leave Act protects certain leave. The Americans with Disabilities Act covers disability and accommodation, and USERRA guards the jobs of people who serve in the military. Knowing which one fits a set of facts often shapes how a case moves after that. The mix of federal and Tennessee law also means a claim can rest on more than one statute at once.

How the two-lawyer team is built

The roster stays small: two lawyers who report a combined 48 years in employment law. They came into the field by different routes, and Donna Mikel's early years on the employer side give the firm a view from both sides of a workplace dispute.

Donna Mikel

Donna Mikel is a member of the firm, where she practices employment law and litigation. Early in her career she represented employers on wage and hour matters and termination questions, and around 2007 her practice changed course. She holds a B.S. in Criminal Justice from the University of Great Falls and a J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law.

Doug Hamill

Doug Hamill practices employment law at the firm as well. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from King College in Bristol, Tennessee in 1999, then a law degree from the University of Tennessee in 2003, where he served on the Tennessee Law Review. Before he moved into private practice he clerked for the Chancery Court of Hamilton County, work that put him in a courtroom from the start.

What the record shows

Two figures give a rough measure of the practice. Between them, Donna Mikel and Doug Hamill count more than 300 cases handled in federal court, with further matters in state court and in alternative dispute resolution. Set against 48 years of combined experience, that total points to a steady stream of litigation across many years.

The firm does not publish a founding year, and the 48 years counts the two lawyers' shared experience. As a reviewer, I weigh a federal case count like that more heavily than any slogan, because it points to work a court actually saw. It also tells a prospective client that both lawyers have spent real time in front of federal judges.

Where the cases are handled

Employment disputes can land in more than one forum, and the firm works across them. It litigates in state and federal court, handles EEOC proceedings, and takes matters into arbitration and mediation. Many discrimination claims begin with a charge at the EEOC before a court ever sees them, so that early step matters. The same two lawyers carry a case through whichever forum it reaches, so a client keeps the same counsel as the matter moves.

Advisory work runs beside the litigation. The firm reviews severance agreements, advises on compliance with workplace rules, and drafts contracts and policies for clients who want to head off a problem early. That side of the practice serves people before a dispute forms.

The firm takes cases on a contingent basis or an hourly one, depending on the matter. It brings that arrangement to workers in Chattanooga and across East Tennessee who carry a discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage, or termination claim.