The severance agreement on your kitchen table
You have been handed a packet and a deadline. Here is what the documents actually say, which deadlines are real, what cannot be signed away — and how to think about the number.
First, three facts.
- Your final paycheck is not severance. Wages you have already earned — including accrued vacation — are owed regardless, and California forbids conditioning undisputed wages on a signature.1
- California law entitles you to written notice of your right to consult a lawyer, and to not less than five business days to do it.
- Pressure to sign today is a bargaining tactic, not a rule. Nothing in the packet requires a same-day answer.
1 · What a severance agreement is
It is a purchase. The employer offers money — sometimes also benefits continuation, equity treatment, an agreed reference — and what it is buying is certainty: a release of the legal claims you could otherwise bring. That is a legitimate trade, and often a sensible one for both sides. But understand what it means: the moment the money is worth accepting is a legal judgment about what you would be giving up. The offer is a first position, not a verdict. It can be negotiated — the letter will never say so, but it is true — and the strength of your position depends on facts the employer already knows and you may not yet have named.
2 · The clock — which parts are real
Severance packets come with dates, and the dates do different work. Some are law. Some are the employer’s preference wearing the costume of law. Sorting them is the first thing to do.
The deadlines, sorted
| Who | The rule |
|---|---|
| Everyone, in California | Written notice of your right to consult counsel, and not less than five business days to consider. You may sign sooner — but only if that choice is knowing and voluntary.2 |
| Forty and older | For the age-claims release to be valid: 21 days to consider — 45 if the termination is part of a group program, with disclosure of who else was selected.3 |
| After signing, 40+ | Seven days to revoke. The agreement is not effective until the revocation window closes — a signature on Monday is not the end of the story. |
| The letter’s own date | The employer’s choice. Often extendable on a polite written request; occasionally firm. Treat it as real until an extension is confirmed in writing. |
3 · The clauses, decoded
Release of claims. The heart of the document: you give up the right to sue over anything that has happened so far. Read which claims are listed — and notice that the release covers what happened, not what happens next.
The §1542 waiver. That dense paragraph quoting Civil Code section 1542 — a release normally “does not extend to claims that the creditor or releasing party does not know or suspect to exist” — exists to waive exactly that protection. Signing it releases even claims you have not discovered yet. This is the paragraph that makes review before signing worth it.4
Confidentiality and non-disparagement. Narrower than they look. Since 2022, a California severance agreement cannot stop you from discussing unlawful acts in the workplace — harassment, discrimination, retaliation, wage violations. A clause that reads broader than that is broader than the law allows.5
No-rehire. A promise never to apply again. If you had already raised a claim against the employer, California restricts these provisions; if you had not, they remain common. Either way, worth negotiating if the employer runs half the industry in your town.6
References. Often missing, and often obtainable: an agreed neutral reference — dates, title, sometimes an agreed letter — costs the employer nothing and can matter more to your next decade than another week of pay.
Cooperation clauses. A promise of future help with the employer’s legal matters. Reasonable in principle; open-ended in many drafts. Cap the hours, require expenses, and keep it from becoming an unpaid second job.
4 · What cannot be signed away
Some rights survive any signature. Wages nobody disputes you earned, including accrued vacation. Workers’ compensation claims, which can be released only with the state board’s approval. Unemployment benefits, which are between you and the EDD — an employer’s paper cannot take them, and severance itself generally does not disqualify you. The right to file or assist with a charge at the EEOC, the Civil Rights Department, or the Labor Commissioner — a release can waive your recovery, not your voice. And the Labor Code’s protections, expense reimbursement among them, which the Code itself declares non-waivable.7 If a draft pretends otherwise, that tells you something about the draft.
5 · How to think about the number
Folklore says a week or two per year of service. Folklore describes what employers offer, not what cases are worth. The number in your letter reflects three things: the norm for your level and tenure, the employer’s appetite for closure, and — above all — the risk it believes it is buying. That last input is the one you can change. If the story behind your termination sketches a real claim — a complaint followed by a firing, a disability the company stopped accommodating, commissions that never added up — then the release the employer wants is worth more than the letter offers, and saying so precisely, with the record to back it, changes the conversation in kind rather than degree.
That assessment — is this a severance negotiation or the opening of a case — is the single most valuable thing a lawyer can give you in the week the packet arrives. It is what the five business days are for.
6 · What I do with severance packets
I review them, and where the facts warrant it, I negotiate them. Sometimes the honest advice is that the offer is fair and you should take it — I will say so plainly, and the review will have cost you a conversation. When the facts suggest a claim worth more than the offer, I will show you why on paper, and you will decide with the real trade in front of you. Either way: do not sign first and ask second. The order matters, and it only works in one direction.
Notes
- Lab. Code §§206.5, 227.3.
- Gov. Code §12964.5, as amended by S.B. 331 (2022).
- 29 U.S.C. §626(f) (OWBPA).
- Civ. Code §1542.
- Gov. Code §12964.5 (the “Silenced No More” amendments).
- Code Civ. Proc. §1002.5.
- Lab. Code §§206.5, 227.3, 2802, 2804; Unemp. Ins. Code §1342.
Related writing: If you signed an arbitration agreement · Your personnel file: you have a right to it
This article states California and federal law as of its revision date and is analysis, not legal advice. Reading this site does not create an attorney-client relationship. Attorney advertising.