The First 72 Hours After You’re Fired: A Checklist | Wrongful Termination Lawyers in Maryland

What you do in the three days after a termination shapes what options remain open months later. Access to your email disappears the same afternoon. Severance deadlines start running. Unemployment benefits generally do not pay retroactively for weeks you failed to claim. Wrongful termination lawyers in Maryland spend a lot of time reconstructing evidence that was sitting in an inbox the client could have forwarded on the way out. The steps below are ordered by how quickly they expire, not by importance.

What should you do before you leave the building?

Ask for the reason in writing and say nothing else about the decision. Maryland does not require employers to give a written explanation, but many will provide one if asked in the moment, and a stated reason locked in early is useful if the explanation changes later.

Do not argue, admit fault, or negotiate. Anything you say in that meeting can be repeated back at an unemployment hearing. A short response works: you disagree with the decision, you would like the reason in writing, and you will follow up.

Should you sign anything on the spot?

No. Severance agreements, releases, and acknowledgment forms should be reviewed before signing, and you are almost never required to sign that day.

If you are 40 or older, federal law gives you protections worth knowing. Under the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, an agreement waiving age discrimination claims must give you at least 21 days to consider it, or 45 days if the separation is part of a group layoff, plus 7 days to revoke after signing. An employer pressing you to sign immediately is either ignoring that law or hoping you don’t know it.

Signing a release typically extinguishes every claim you have, including ones you have not identified yet.

What should you save, and what should you leave alone?

Save your own record of the employment relationship. Leave company property and confidential business information behind.

That distinction matters more than most people realize. Forward to a personal account the documents that concern you: performance reviews, commendations, your complaints to HR and the responses, emails about the conduct at issue, schedules, pay records, and the termination notice. Photograph anything that exists only on paper.

Do not download client lists, pricing files, source code, or databases. Taking proprietary material hands the employer a counterclaim, shifts the case away from what they did to you, and in some circumstances costs an employee the protection they were trying to preserve. Take what documents your case, not what damages theirs.

Request your personnel file in writing while you are still in contact with HR.

Then write a timeline the same night, while the sequence is exact. Who said what, on which date, with whom in the room. Memory for this degrades within weeks, and a contemporaneous timeline carries weight that a reconstruction two years later does not.

When is your final paycheck due in Maryland?

Your employer must pay all wages due on or before the day you would have been paid had you kept working, meaning the next regular payday. That requirement comes from the Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law.

Accrued vacation generally must be paid out unless the employer had a written policy, provided to you at hire, stating that unused leave is forfeited on separation. Withheld wages carry real consequences: where there is no bona fide dispute over the amount, Maryland law permits recovery of up to three times the unpaid wages plus attorney’s fees. Wage claims are subject to a three-year limitations period.

How quickly should you file for unemployment?

File within the first few days. Maryland processes claims through the BEACON system, benefits are not paid for weeks you did not claim, and the first payment typically takes a few weeks to arrive.

Being fired does not automatically disqualify you. Disqualification requires misconduct connected with the work, and the employer carries the burden of proving it. Even where misconduct is found, the penalty varies with severity rather than cutting off benefits in every case.

Answer the questions accurately and briefly. Your statements become part of a record that can resurface in a later civil case, so the account you give the agency and the account you give an attorney need to match.

What happens to your health insurance?

Coverage usually ends on the last day of the month, though some plans terminate it on the separation date. Ask HR for the exact date in writing.

COBRA lets you continue group coverage for up to 18 months if your employer has 20 or more employees, and you have 60 days from the qualifying event to elect it. You pay the full premium plus an administrative fee, which is often a shock. Maryland has a continuation law covering some smaller employers. Losing job-based coverage also opens a special enrollment period on Maryland Health Connection, and a subsidized marketplace plan is frequently cheaper than COBRA. Compare both before the 60 days run out.

How long do you have to bring a claim?

Discrimination and retaliation charges with the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights are generally due within six months of the termination, with a longer window for harassment. Maryland’s worksharing agreement with the EEOC extends the federal charge deadline to 300 days.

Those windows sound generous and disappear quickly, particularly once a severance deadline is competing for your attention.

The first three days are mostly about preserving options: documents, deadlines, and a clean record of what happened. If the termination followed a complaint, a leave request, an accommodation, or a refusal to do something you believed was unlawful, have wrongful termination lawyers in Maryland review the separation agreement before you sign it rather than after.