I'm an employment attorney who rejects 98% of inquiries. Here are the wrongful termination cases that actually stand a chance.

• Jonathan Pollard is an employment attorney who receives hundreds of inquiries.
• He writes that most employees with grievances are entitled, dramatic, and looking for a payday.

I'm an employment attorney who has represented hundreds of employees and litigated many cases over the past decade.

I own a law firm with offices in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and shortly in St. Louis, Missouri. These days, most of our work involves representing employees in pursuing cases against corporate America for discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and retaliation.

I believe in the work that we do. There are very real instances of corporate America engaging in misconduct, and we aggressively pursue those real cases.

But I also believe that many — probably most — employees with workplace grievances are entitled, dramatic, maladjusted, delusional, and just looking for a payday.

If anyone can say that with authority, it's me. Each week, I would estimate our firm gets more than 500 inquiries a week on employment cases. We reject about 98% of these. The numbers break down as follows and the percentages are approximations:

• 75% are clearly frivolous and there is no case

• 20% are plausible cases that I don't pursue due to a lack of evidence or unfavorable law

• 5% are real cases — of these real cases, I only take 2-3%

The frivolous cases: Most people who reach out have no case

Two categories of people make up the first group of inquiries (the 75%).

1. People who feel that someone was mean to them at work

• They were fired and don't like the reason why

• They think they did a good job, or at least a not fireable job

• They were never given a final warning

• They don't feel valued or "validated"

These people feel like their situation is terribly unfair and hurtful. In these types of cases, the details may change, but the general story is always the same: Company X recruited Fred and promised him the world (not in writing, of course). The company never trained Fred on key responsibilities. The company threw Fred to the wolves and made him figure things out on his own. Fred did his best. But his direct boss never empowered him. Fred's voice and opinions were not heard and validated. Fred was terminated. And his feelings are hurt.

Modern society has convinced people that feelings and rights are interchangeable. But that is not true. Laws exist to protect rights, not feelings.

2. People who received critical feedback or were put on a PIP

Some people are aggrieved solely because a company has given them critical feedback on their performance. These people have no concrete allegations of, e.g., discrimination, retaliation, or other corporate misconduct. But they have been fired, given a negative performance review, or placed on a "PIP plan."Let's call our example Joe. Joe is in his mid 40s. Joe has worked at Company X for 15 years in sales management. And, for the first time in his life, Joe has been told that his performance is not satisfactory. Company X placed him on a PIP plan. Joe's immediate reaction is not to evaluate his performance or consider whether he may be deficient in certain areas.

People like Joe automatically attribute this to something illegal and nefarious (without specific facts supporting that conclusion). They want to "take legal action" or "figure out their rights." They cannot articulate any actual corporate wrongdoing. Instead, the perceived wrong is solely the employment action taken against them. And the harm to their feelings.

The plausible cases: Some people have viable cases, but they aren't worth pursuing

Plausible cases involve a situation where something seems improper but there is no compelling, direct evidence and/or the law on that specific situation is not in not favorable.

These are situations where the employee might have a viable case — but not a case that is strong enough for us to pursue.

The bucket of plausible cases we receive is just above 20%.

The real cases: A small percentage are from people who clearly have been legally wronged

The remaining 5% are real legal cases arising out of workplace issues and corporate misconduct. These include:

• Discrimination

• Retaliation

• Sexual harassment

• Sexual assault

• Defamation

The potential clients are good, solid people who seem reasonable and honest. At their jobs, they have been treated in a manner that is morally and legally wrong, inhumane, and sometimes utterly horrific.

Still, we do not take all these cases because of economic realities. Many small companies that engage in the worst forms of misconduct do not have sufficient assets or insurance. A $10 million judgment is worthless unless you can collect.

I've chased big judgments through layers of shell companies. I don't do that anymore. This is reality: It is not my job to play nursemaid to the universe and tilt at windmills.

The cases we accept: a small percentage that meets specific metrics

That leaves roughly 2% to 3% of cases that we accept. These days, most of those cases fall into a handful of specific buckets:

• Race discrimination (particularly against Black people)

• Age discrimination (particularly against folks 60 and older)

• Sexual harassment or outright sexual assault

• Many of these cases also have a retaliation component

We see cases from every industry. But some of the ugliest, most egregious cases come out of the broader construction industry: workers constantly called the N-word and told that they would be killed if it was still the good old days; construction foreman riding around on his golf cart, gun strapped to his waist, shouting racial slurs at black workers digging in a trench; rampant sexual harassment and sexual assault; women raped by a coworker on a job site.

And in these real cases, where we represent good people who have basically been beaten down and abused, we will go to the ends of the earth to vindicate their rights. But even then, litigation, trial, and even a big jury verdict won't undo whatever damage has been done.

At best, litigation gets you a chunk of money. You must find and make your own peace.

Jonathan Pollard is an employment attorney based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.