Page 20 - BusinessWest March 17, 2025

“Sometimes, when you have small businesses, especially in family businesses, it’s so close
and they’re so friendly that
it’s difficult to draw boundaries and set the expectations
and hold people accountable. And that is a recipe for disaster.”
>>
Cannon
Continued from page 18
lems down the road.
“I become a part of their team, kind of. They see me,
and I know a lot about the business. So when I do have to defend them, I already know that stuff. I already know who the managers are, what they do, I’ve probably seen the complainant, and I can see red flags when not all the managers are seeing those red flags — and I can train to those red flags.”
In short, Cannon said she and her clients are both gratified by this work.
“The pivot was just natural. And it makes me happy. I help people grow and become better businesses and pre- vent a lot of litigation. One of my clients actually told me that, since I did training for them, their litigation has gone down by 90%.”
Brewing Up Solutions
Cannon noted that Western Mass. is home to many labor and employment law firms, but she aims to stand out from them through her focused service model.
“They’re really good, but it’s mostly litigation. Then,
if they’ve got a long-standing client, they’re going to call and get some advice and counsel. I’m hoping to flip that model; I’ll do litigation if my clients want me to, but I real- ly want them to call me before that happens.”
For example, she noted, “I have the ability to under- stand when someone might need an ADA accommo- dation. I can walk into a place and see a management practice or a business practice that might not be good, like inconsistent application of the rules or blatant safety concerns.
“If it’s a sales floor and there’s a chair that’s in the way of the fire extinguisher or if there’s a mat in front of
the door that’s getting stuck and nobody knows anything about it, that tells me they probably need some OSHA training because those are safety issues, and they don’t know that it’s not OK for that to happen, or they don’t realize it’s their responsibility,” she elaborated. “Lots of managers don’t realize that they could be on the hook and be sued personally for the conduct of the people they’re supervising. And when I tell them that, their ears perk up.”
Relationships in the workplace can be another red flag, and sometimes those become evident when Cannon visits a site.
“Sometimes there’s a lot of resistance about what it’s OK to say, or there being too close of a relationship between an owner and a manager. Not that it’s a sexual relationship or any sort of love relationship, but I think sometimes, when you have small businesses, especially in family businesses, it’s so close and they’re so friendly that it’s difficult to draw boundaries and set the expecta- tions and hold people accountable. And that is a recipe for disaster.”
Cannon’s knowhow in maintaining a healthy work- place comes not just from her law experience, but from working in a broad variety of jobs in her life. She’s waited tables, cleaned hotel rooms, flipped burgers, owned an apartment building, and owned a cleaning service, as well as working at a golf course, in event planning, at a mar- keting firm, at a financial brokerage firm, as an HR direc- tor, and as an internal investigator.
“I’ve done so many jobs, I know what it takes to start a business. I
know what it takes to keep a
Cannon
Continued on page 22
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