First off, let me make clear that the most responsible thing a librarian can do when asked for advice on a legal matter is to encourage you to get qualified legal advice. Librarians are not lawyers (or doctors, etc.). You may want to consult with the Virginia Legal Aid Society. There is also a commercial referral site called Virginia Employment Lawyers which may be worth looking at, though bear in mind that such referral sites should be evaluated with their commercial intentions clearly in mind.


Given the above caveat, I can suggest some research resources for you. There is a Lexis-Nexis page on Virginia Labor Law posted by Lawyers.com (bear in mind the above caveat if you go to other pages within that commercial referral site. The Holt Labor Library hosts a page of links for labor research. You can check out legal publisher Nolo’s Employee Rights page. Cornell University Law School’s Legal Information Institute has a page on labor law. These general resources should get you started and help educate yourself, but I again stress that qualified legal counsel is important as you move forward with this.


As for unemployment compensation, you should contact the D.C. Dept. of Employment Services to find out how to proceed.