Have a hotline? Take all complaints seriously.

More employers in recent years have set up hotlines that employees can call to report discrimination or harassment. This helps in your legal defense because you can show if an employee failed to use this simple complaint-filing tool.

But that hotline can also bite back if you don't take all the complaints seriously. Track every report that comes in, what you did to address it and what the result was.

Recent case: Malcolm sued for age bias after being laid off. During discovery, Malcom's lawyers came across a report to the company's ethics hotline that said an applicant complained that a hiring manager asked his...