About us
Where we come from
severance-pay-germany.de is a Berlin-based start-up, helping employees to get easy access to good labor lawyers, especially in cases of unfair dismissals. We know from our own experience how hard it can be to find legal advice, especially in jurisdictions where one is less familiar with the legal frameworks, e.g. when your employment is terminated by your employer.
Many expats in Germany have great jobs and excellent compensation packages. However, not all of them are fully aware of their rights in case of (unfair) dismissal. Besides the language barrier, German labor laws can be confusing. However, Germany tends to be among the more employee-friendly countries, especially when it comes to firing employees adn compensating for unfair dismissal. But not every expat knows his or her rights – or about the fact that once you have a termination letter in your letterbox, the proverbial clock is ticking: In most cases, you have exactly 3 weeks to file a complaint against the dismissal in a dedicated labor court. Which will require a lawyer for most of us.
How we operate
On our website, our users find information in “plain English” about how to deal with dismissals in Germany – and how to find a good labor lawyer fast. In our blog pages, we answer the most pressing questions of employees after the termination of their contract. Including, for example, the given rights of employees in German labor law, the calculation of the appropriate severance payment, the steps one has to take to get this, and the “red tape” (like an application for unemployment benefits). We have whitepapers and videos, which will soon be available in English as well.
Additionally, we arrange free initial consultations with one of our curated partner lawyers, all of which are curated English-speaking experts lawyers on labor law (Fachanwälte für Arbeitsrecht) with many years of experience). All this is free of charge for the employee – we monetize solely on the partner/lawyer side to cover our cost.
The founders
Frank Broer
Frank studied law, economics, and business administration and received his doctorate in law. He worked for a few years as a lawyer and tax consultant in Frankfurt/Main. After that, he was a project manager in the corporate finance practice of McKinsey&Company for 6 years and held various management positions in start-ups, partly as a founder afterwards. In 2023 he founded severance-pay-germany.de with Timo
Timo Sauer
Timo is an economist and expert in online/ performance marketing, product development and conversion rate optimization. As one of the first employees in a Berlin start-up, he helped make it the largest lead-gen platform in Europe for many years. At the same time, from 2015, he also worked with his own company in an advisory capacity for various start-ups. In 2022 he founded severance-pay-germany.de with Frank