From the December 2011 issue of Benefits Selling:

Serious misconceptions about the legal system are among the hidden stressors that impose a high cost on people and their workplace. The stressors arise in workers' lives away from the job, but come to the job with them. What happens outside takes a hefty toll inside. Every manager grappling with human resource issues, or trying to administer benefits programs, deals with such problems daily.

Hardly any of the external stressors is more intense than those that lay siege to an employee involved in litigation. A marriage hits the rocks, and negotiations over everything from child custody to division of property to alimony to debt responsibility shoves the employee into an emotionally tough court battle. A worker's teenager wrecks the family car while speeding, injuring the driver of another car, and the employee begins the arduous trek through the legal system. The list of crises could go on and on.