Most companies treat strategy and legal as separate conversations. That approach creates gaps, delays decisions, and increases risk. This book brings both perspectives to the same table.
This is notAn HR showA legal showTwo lenses, one table.
A show, a book, and possibilities. All of it built on the same idea, that the strategy read and the legal read have to happen together and before the decision, not in two departments who meet after something goes wrong. This is where we change the industry lens, because we bring both of those chairs to the table at the same time.
Employment attorney. Compliance, investigations, and workplace risk. Leads Legal Lens.
Workplace Unfiltered
Where we actually are
Built already, and still open.
The website, designed and readyBuilt
The show, named and formatted, seven segmentsBuilt
Nine episode concepts, all current, in your handsBuilt
31 Days, structure locked and cover designedBuilt
The domain, workplace-unfiltered.studioSecured
The platform accountsOpen
Episodes recordedOpen
The writingOpen
Workplace Unfiltered
How it moves
Nothing waits on anything else.
Three tracks, built at the same time. The show is the one with a deadline, so it sets the pace.
Track one
The show
The anchor. It produces regularly, it keeps us current, and it is the thing people find first. The book and everything else point back to it.
Track two
The book
The evergreen version. It does not expire the way an episode does, and it is the thing someone can hold and hand to someone else.
Track three
The reach
The accounts, the inbox, the places our work gets posted. Not exciting, but it is how people find us.
Workplace Unfiltered
The show
Two chairs · Two lenses · One table
Workplace Unfiltered
The format
Seven segments, one conversation.
1In FocusTogether
2Between Policy and PeopleTogether
3The Gray AreaTogether
4Legal LensLeiann leads
5Strategy ShiftLen leads
6What We'd DoTogether, no hedging
7The Dark HorseSignature
The same seven every time, so a listener learns the rhythm and knows where they are. Two segments are ours individually. The rest we do together.
Workplace Unfiltered
The signature
The overlooked thing. The detail nobody is watching that will decide the outcome.
It closes every episode and it is the reason people come back. Not a summary, not a takeaway. The thing that was there the whole time that nobody mentioned. The vendor contract nobody read. The score you were never shown. The commute. The mailroom. Your own website.
Every one of the nine concepts already has one.
Workplace Unfiltered
The website, built
Designed, wired, and ready to go live
Workplace Unfiltered
Inside the site
The voices, and where it will live
Workplace Unfiltered
The domain, secured
The show has its own address
workplace-unfiltered.studio
Registered through Squarespace and held for one year.
What having it gives us.
The website
This is the address the site lives at. Everything we make points back to it, and it is the one link we hand anybody.
An email for the show
We can create an address on this domain, so anything that comes in arrives at the show and not at either of us personally.
A way to reach us
Questions, guest suggestions, and anything a company sends us all land in the same place, and we both see them.
Workplace Unfiltered
Nine conversations
1The Algorithm Made Me Do ItAI and accountabilityThe vendor contract nobody read.
2Judged in SecretAI and transparencyThe score you were never shown.
3AI WashingWorkforce reductionThe layoff that was never about AI.
4The Missing First RungPipeline and early careerThe mailroom.
5The Quiet LayoffWorkplace policyThe commute.
6Counted and UncountedData and governanceThe spreadsheet.
7Fifty States, One WorkforceMulti state complianceThe remote hire.
8The Enforcement PlanDEI enforcementYour own website.
9The Seniority TrapAge and experienceThe age of the person who kept their job.
All nine are in your hands already. Nothing is settled. Tell me what you want to add, cut, or reorder.
Workplace Unfiltered
Where it lives
One show, everywhere people already are.
The site is where the show lives. These are the other places we post it, and they are already named on the page.
The websiteBuilt
SpotifyTo create
Apple PodcastsTo create
YouTubeTo create
TikTokTo create
SubstackTo create
Workplace Unfiltered
Workplace Unfiltered
31
Days
The risks you'll see coming, one a day, through both lenses
Strategy and Law, together
Len Thomas+Leiann Laiks
Workplace Unfiltered
31 Days
Thomas · Laiks
The book · 6 × 9 · working mockup
Workplace Unfiltered
How the book works
An opening, then thirty one days.
The opening
Before Day 1
About ten pages. A tech company gets sued over its hiring tool. It starts with the man who filed the lawsuit and shows why he did it. Then it moves to the company on the day the complaint shows up and what they find out when they start looking. Nobody there did anything careless and it still happened. No teaching in this part. It just shows what happened and how big it got. It ends with them calling us.
The month
Day 1 through Day 31
Twenty three weekday chapters and four weekend chapters. Day 1 is a Monday, so the month runs the way a real one does. The last three days go back to the same company from the opening and show it done right, with both of us in the room before anybody signs anything.
Workplace Unfiltered
A weekday chapter
A scene, then the work.
Every weekday chapter starts with a short scene. A different company and different people every time, a few pages, and it stops right when the thing goes wrong. Then we get into the work.
Week one · Day 03
The screening tool nobody owns
The scene
A recruiter pulls twenty rejections on a Tuesday morning and something about the older end of the range looks off to her. She writes it up in a channel. Two people react. The thread moves on.
The risk
Procurement bought it, talent ops runs it, the vendor set the scoring. Three groups touched it and none of them decided anything, so nobody can say who made the call.
The Strategy Lens
This is an authority problem, not a tool problem. Nobody was given the power to say who decides, and that gap was there before anyone bought anything.
The Legal Lens
When you hand screening to a vendor's system, that vendor may be acting on your behalf, which means the exposure is shared. The contract is where that gets decided.
About four pages. Same shape every weekday so a reader learns the rhythm by Wednesday.
Workplace Unfiltered
A weekend chapter
This is where they meet us.
Every weekend chapter is the two of us recording our podcast. It opens with a little bit of us before the mic goes on. She might ask how my dad is doing. I might ask about her teenagers. Then we start recording, and at the end we say what we are covering next week.
We cover a real public case that has the same problem in it as the week we just finished. We do not cover the client's case from that week, on purpose. That shows the reader that what a client tells us is confidential, so we use cases that are already public and that anyone can look up.
The state patchwork. Colorado's AI law, Illinois pulling its rules, seventeen states that make you post pay.Days 6 and 7
Kistler v. Eightfold AI. The score you were never shown.Days 13 and 14
The EEOC enforcement plan and the Nike subpoena. A company's own marketing copy used against it.Days 20 and 21
Return to office and accommodation. The July 2026 ruling that ordered telework put back.Days 27 and 28
Workplace Unfiltered
Week one
The Foundation
Days 1 through 7
What you set up before you hired anybody.
Day 01The policy doc nobody has opened since Series A
Day 02The contractor who has been on standup for two years
Day 03The screening tool nobody owns
Day 04Remote first, fifty jurisdictions
Day 05The junior rung you stopped backfilling
Days 6 and 7, our podcastWe cover the state patchwork
Workplace Unfiltered
Week two
The Front Door
Days 8 through 14
Bringing people in.
Day 08The req that screens people out by accident
Day 09The background check that skipped a step
Day 10The candidates you ghosted, and the record it left
Day 11Posted comp bands, exposed patterns
Day 12Levels and comp that drifted apart
Days 13 and 14, our podcastWe cover Kistler v. Eightfold AI
Workplace Unfiltered
Week three
While Nobody Is Watching
Days 15 through 21
What goes wrong quietly once people are already there.
Day 15Wage and hour, the one everybody assumes is handled
Day 16The demographic data you have to collect and have to protect
Day 17Your careers page as evidence
Day 18The first time manager you promoted for shipping
Day 19The accommodation that started before anyone filed
Days 20 and 21, our podcastWe cover the EEOC enforcement plan and the Nike subpoena
Workplace Unfiltered
Week four
When It Lands On a Person
Days 22 through 28
The moment one person becomes a matter.
Day 22Leave, applied unevenly
Day 23Burnout as a structure question
Day 24The complaint, and the risk in how you answered it
Day 25The PIP that looks like a setup
Day 26RTO as a quiet layoff
Days 27 and 28, our podcastWe cover return to office and accommodation
Workplace Unfiltered
Week five, the turn
Strategy and Legal, at the Table from the Start
Days 29 through 31
No weekend. Three days that go back to the company from the opening and show it done right.
Day 29The room where they buy the tool. Same meeting, same people, except we are sitting there. Who owns it once it is on. Does the doc still say what we actually do. Has anybody tested the scoring.
Day 30The room where they make the cut. They are about to reduce and call it AI. What is the real reason, because the filing and the announcement have to match. Who is on the list, and what notice do you owe and where.
Day 31What it looks like when nothing happens. No complaint. The man from the opening applies and a person reads it. Then Mobley v. Workday, so the reader knows the risk is real.
The company in the book is made up. Mobley is not. It was filed in 2023 and is still in discovery, and the argument is that a vendor screening your candidates may be acting on your behalf.
Workplace Unfiltered
The scope
How long, and how big.
Setting the size up front so we both write to the same length and the book does not get away from us.
23
weekday chapters
4
weekend chapters, our podcast
140
pages, give or take
6×9
trade paperback
About four pages a weekday chapter, about five a weekend chapter, and ten for the opening. Short enough that a busy leader actually finishes it. Long enough to be a real book we can charge for and hand out.
Workplace Unfiltered
How we publish
Out in the world, quickly.
01
Amazon KDP
Published through Kindle Direct Publishing, in both ebook and print, with no publishing house in the middle. Free to publish, and we own it. Low print cost means we can also buy copies to hand out.
02
Sell online to start
The book lives online first. It proves we know this, and it is how people find us, so getting it out matters more than a big launch.
03
Copyright registration
We register the copyright so it is protected and ours on the record. I will handle the filing and we can split the cost.
Workplace Unfiltered
Where they meet
The show and the book are the same world.
Four of the nine episodes become the weekend chapters. The rest show up during the week as risks.
The episode·The book
Fifty States, One Workforce→Days 6 and 7The weekend podcast, and Day 4 during the week
Judged in Secret→Days 13 and 14The weekend podcast
The Enforcement Plan→Days 20 and 21The weekend podcast, and Day 17 during the week
The Quiet Layoff→Days 27 and 28The weekend podcast, and Day 26 during the week
The Algorithm Made Me Do It→Day 03The screening tool nobody owns
The Missing First Rung→Day 05The junior rung you stopped backfilling
AI Washing→Day 30The room where they make the cut
The episode covers the case with dates and filings. The book covers the problem underneath it, which does not go out of date. Same risks either way, which is what tells me this is one body of work and not two projects that happen to look alike.
Workplace Unfiltered
Future possibilities
If there is ever a demand.
And we have the time and the desire to do so. These are options, not a plan.
01
Speaking engagements together
One stage, two lenses. The talk is the conversation we are already having, in front of a room.
02
Work inside a company
They bring one decision they are about to make and we run it through both lenses before they make it.
03
The two lens review
They hand over what they already have, the postings, the handbook, the process, and we read it from both sides at once and tell them where the gap is.
The book will carry a page in the back for organizations to reach out, and the same block will live on the site. So the language exists either way, and if it happens, it happens.
Workplace Unfiltered
A show, a book, and possibilities. Strategy and Law, built together, before the decision instead of after the lawsuit.
This is everything in one place so you can see the whole shape of it. Nothing here is settled. Tell me what you think, what you would add, what you would change. I want this to be ours.
Len
Proprietary to Inclusive Impact Consulting. Not for distribution or sharing outside this engagement.
