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Protecting Your Career: Strategic Exit & Severance for Professionals
You’ve spent years building a reputation and investing yourself in your position at the company. Now, you’re being sidelined, placed on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), or told the company is “moving in a different direction.” You have too much to lose to just walk away with nothing.
If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Executives, directors, senior managers, and other high-earning professionals in St. Louis and throughout Missouri face these situations more often than most people realize. Companies rarely fire top earners outright without deliberation and planning to protect their own interests. Instead, they engineer the exit—slowly marginalizing your role, placing you on a PIP designed for failure, or creating conditions so uncomfortable that you resign on your own. This strategy protects the company, not you.
The difference between walking away empty-handed and leaving with a severance package that reflects your value often comes down to one factor: knowing what leverage you have before you sign anything.
How the “Quiet Exit” Strategy Works
Most high-level professionals prefer to avoid the litigation track. A public lawsuit can be time-consuming, expensive, and damaging to a career that depends on reputation and relationships. That’s exactly what employers count on. They assume you’ll take the initial offer—often a fraction of what you deserve—and move on quietly.
A professional exit strategy flips that assumption. Instead of accepting a lowball severance offer or walking away with nothing, the process begins with a thorough assessment of the circumstances surrounding your departure. This means reviewing your employment agreement, identifying any contract breaches, examining whether your treatment involved discrimination or retaliation, and pinpointing other leverage points that strengthen your position.
The goal isn’t necessarily to file a lawsuit. It’s to use legitimate legal claims as leverage to negotiate a confidential employment settlement that exceeds the company’s initial offer. This model emphasizes speed and discretion—resolving the matter quickly so you can focus on transitioning to your next role rather than spending months or years in litigation.
High-Earner Wrongful Termination & Leverage Points
For professionals earning between six figures or more, the financial stakes of a poorly handled exit can be significant. Every week without clarity can be a week of lost income, stalled career momentum, and mounting stress. Identifying leverage early in the process can dramatically shift the outcome. Common leverage points in executive-level separations include:
Breach of Contract
Executive employment agreements, offer letters, and compensation plans often contain specific provisions governing termination, notice periods, and severance entitlements. When an employer fails to honor those terms—whether by terminating before a guaranteed period expires or by withholding contractually promised compensation—the breach itself becomes a powerful negotiating tool.
Complex Compensation Disputes
Severance packages for $100K+ employees often involve more than base salary. Bonuses, commissions, deferred compensation, equity grants, and stock options all require careful analysis. Employers frequently attempt to compel employees to forfeit these types of compensation during a separation, counting on the fact that most departing employees won’t challenge the situation. Understanding what you’re owed—and what the company stands to lose by litigating those amounts—can create significant leverage at the negotiation table.
Constructive Discharge
Sometimes an employer won’t fire you directly. Instead, they make conditions so intolerable that you feel forced to resign. This is known as constructive discharge, and it can carry the same legal weight as a wrongful termination. If your employer is systematically stripping your responsibilities, isolating you from key decisions, or creating a hostile work environment to push you out, documenting those actions is critical before making any decisions.
Non-Compete Cleanup
Many executives are bound by restrictive covenants—non-compete agreements, non-solicitation clauses, and confidentiality provisions—that can limit future employment options. A severance negotiation is often the ideal opportunity to trade claims for a full release from those restrictions. Negotiating a PIP response or exit while simultaneously addressing non-compete concerns can mean the difference between a six-month job search and an immediate transition to your next opportunity.
Why Choose Riggan Law Firm for Executive Severance Negotiations?
The Employer’s Playbook—From the Inside
Before founding his own practice, attorney Russ Riggan spent nearly a decade as a management-side employment lawyer at two of Missouri’s largest law firms, representing employers in employment-related disputes. He knows the playbook HR departments use to push out high earners—the manufactured PIPs, the carefully worded documentation, and the pressure tactics designed to minimize severance payouts. That firsthand knowledge of how employers think and strategize is now used exclusively to protect employees.
Russ has been recognized as one of the Top 50 lawyers in St. Louis by Missouri and Kansas Super Lawyers Magazine, has been selected for the Best Lawyers in America list, and has been elected as a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. He was named Lawyer of the Year for labor and employment litigation in the St. Louis market by Best Lawyers in America and has been included on Missouri Lawyers Media’s Power 30 list, which recognizes the 30 most powerful employment attorneys in Missouri. His track record includes securing a $20 million jury verdict in a landmark employment discrimination case.
Financial Maximization
The goal of an executive severance negotiation isn’t simply to get “something” from the company. It’s to get a multiple of what the company initially offered. By identifying all available leverage points—contract breaches, discrimination or retaliation exposure, compensation disputes, and restrictive covenant issues—the negotiation is built on a foundation that compels the employer to take the discussion seriously. The value of working with an experienced executive severance attorney in St. Louis is measured not just in the final dollar amount, but in the speed of resolution and the preservation of your professional reputation.
Results Matter
Riggan Law Firm, LLC has recovered millions of dollars for clients in employment-related disputes. The following results represent the types of outcomes achieved in severance and employment matters:
$1,500,000 Settlement – Severance package negotiated on behalf of an executive employee.
$1,000,000 Settlement – Severance package negotiated on behalf of an executive employee.
$300,000 Settlement – Settlement involving wrongful termination claims.
$250,000 Settlement – Settlement in a case involving employment discrimination claims.
Disclaimer: Past results afford no guarantee of future results. Every case is different and must be judged on its own merits.
Request a Confidential Severance Consultation
Time is of the essence—contacting an attorney before your termination date or before signing a separation agreement provides the most leverage. Once a severance agreement is signed, your options become significantly more limited.
If you’re a professional, manager or executive and find yourself facing a PIP, a forced resignation, or a severance offer that doesn’t reflect the value you have provided to your employer, reach out to discuss your situation with us in confidence. The earlier you engage legal counsel, the more options you may have.
Contact Riggan Law Firm, LLC today at 314-528-9661 or submit a confidential consultation request to begin evaluating your leverage and protecting your career.