When may I initiate an employment discrimination lawsuit in court?

Generally before you may initiate an employment discrimination lawsuit in court, you must file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and in most cases you must also obtain what’s called a right to sue notice, from the EOC. If the EOC fails to complete its investigation within 180 days of you filing the charge, which is not uncommon, you can request what’s called a notice of right to sue, and the EOC will immediately stop its investigation and issue the notice.



Once you have the notice you generally have 90 days to file your lawsuit in federal court.