What we are trying to do
People arrive here in a narrow window, usually with a deadline, looking for a specific answer. The standard we hold ourselves to is that every page should answer its question in the first paragraph, then give the reader enough context to act, and be honest about what is not known.
We do not publish pages that exist only to rank. If a page cannot offer something the existing results do not (a calculation, a decision framework, a specific example, original data, or a materially clearer explanation), it does not get written.
Sources
We prefer primary and authoritative sources, in roughly this order:
- Statutes and regulations.
- Federal agency guidance: the Department of Labor, the EEOC, the IRS.
- State agencies, particularly state workforce and labor departments.
- Court materials and other official government publications.
- Established professional and industry sources, where clearly identified as such.
Substantive legal statements carry a source list at the foot of the page. Where something is common practice rather than a legal requirement, we say so in those words, because the distinction matters enormously in this subject and is frequently blurred elsewhere.
Numbers and benchmarks
We do not publish statistics we cannot attribute. Ranges described on this site as typical are descriptions of widespread employer practice, and they are labelled that way rather than presented as measured data.
Severance.help is building an anonymized dataset of real offers and outcomes from completed assessments. When that dataset can support genuine benchmarks by tenure, level, industry, and employer size, we will publish them with the sample size and methodology stated, and we will only publish a cut where the sample is large enough to be meaningful and to protect the people in it.
How AI is used
Two distinct things happen on this site, and it is worth separating them.
The assessment is AI-generated, and the result says so. It is grounded in fixed arithmetic and a documented factor set rather than produced by an unrestricted prompt. How it works describes the architecture.
Published articles may use AI for research organisation, outlining, drafting, and formatting. No article is published without a human reviewing it for accuracy, checking the legal statements against the cited sources, and taking responsibility for it. We do not mass-generate pages, and we would rather publish thirty pages that are worth reading than three hundred that are not.
Legal content and review
Everything on this site is general information, not legal advice. Severance.help is not a law firm and no attorney-client relationship arises from reading it or from using the assessment.
Pages that touch higher-risk topics, including discrimination, retaliation, protected leave, and the enforceability of restrictive covenants, are held to a stricter standard: they describe what the law generally provides and when to see a lawyer, and they do not reach conclusions about any reader’s situation.
On attorney review. We will not claim legal review that has not happened. Where a page has been reviewed by a qualified employment attorney, the page will name the reviewer and the date. Where no page carries that line, no such review has taken place.
Updates and review dates
Every substantive page shows a publication date, and a last-updated date once it has been revised. Pages that describe legal requirements are scheduled for periodic review, and are revisited sooner when the underlying law changes. Where a revision changes the substance rather than the wording, we say what changed.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it. Substantive corrections are noted on the page rather than made silently.
To complete before launch. This section needs a corrections contact address, and the About page needs the operating entity and the named people responsible for what is published.
Independence
Nothing on this site is paid placement. No employer, law firm, or service provider can buy a recommendation, influence an assessment result, or affect what an article says. If Severance.help later earns money by referring users to independent employment attorneys, that relationship will be disclosed plainly on the page where the referral appears, and it will not change how the assessment evaluates an offer.