Dallas County Veterinary Medical Association Inc.

Laura Calhoun has been representing employers and employees in Texas for over 25 years on a wide range of employment law issues
- Litigation of state and federal employment law claims, including claims for discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment under Title VII, the ADEA, ADA and Chapter 21 of the Texas Labor Code.
- Representation of employers on overtime claims/collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
- Counseling employers on compliance with state and federal employment laws, including drafting/reviewing employer policy manuals and conducting management/staff training on sexual harassment and other anti-discrimination/harassment/retaliation policies, and providing guidance on hiring, performance evaluations, disciplinary action and termination, and dealing with COVID-19 issues.
- Representation of clients before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Texas Workforce Commission-Civil Rights Division on charges of discrimination, harassment and retaliation.
- Negotiation and drafting of employment contracts, non-compete agreements, non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements, independent contractor agreements and severance agreements.
- Representation/counseling on covenants not to compete and other issues of business confidentiality, non-solicitation, trade secrets and tortious interference with contracts and business relations.
- Business entity formation, including preparation of state filings and compliance with other business/corporate formalities, shareholder agreements and buy-sell provisions.
- Negotiation of asset purchase agreements in connection the sale of a business, including multiple veterinary practices.
- Briefed a variety of employment law issues over the years, including a favorable case for my firm’s client involving the Americans With Disabilities Act which was heard by the United States Supreme Court. See Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems, 526 U.S. 795, 143 L. Ed. 2d 966, 119 S. Ct. 1597 (1999).

Sandra Brackenridge, LCSW, BCD has been practicing Clinical Social Work since 1983 in various settings and in three states: Louisiana, Idaho, and Texas. She maintains a small private practice, and she supervises social workers for their clinical licensure.  As Coordinator of Counseling Services at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine 1990-1994,  she developed a social work internship, a pet loss counseling program, an animal-assisted therapy program, and a counseling service for veterinary students. This was one of the first counseling programs in a school of veterinary medicine, and the first program to offer all components.  She left LSU to teach Social Work at Idaho State University from 1994-2008, and she continued as an Associate Professor of Social Work at Texas Woman's University. She has published numerous articles, chapters, and two books: one about pet loss and the other about stress management for the veterinary practice team. She served as Pet Loss Consultant for the Idaho and for the Texas Veterinary Medical Foundations.  She created and supervised the veterinary social work program and internship at the Center for Veterinary Specialty & Emergency Care from 2013-2020.  Sandra provides consultation to other practices who wish to develop a veterinary social work program.  She presents locally and nationally about issues in the veterinary profession, and she teaches for the University of Tennessee's certificate program in veterinary social work.  In October 2018 Sandra received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.