If…
- 1 You have, or had, a federal civilian job
- 2 You were called to active duty
- 3 You received your military salary but it was less than your civilian salary
- 4 Your agency never paid you the difference — or paid only part of it
… then we would like to talk to you.
Tell us where to reach you.
We’ll follow up with a short questionnaire.
What happened
Congress passed 5 U.S.C. § 5538 in 2009 so federal civilian employees would not take a pay cut for answering a call to active duty. For an eligible pay period it compares the civilian basic pay you would otherwise have received with the military pay and allowances payable and allocable to that period.
You did not have to use up your paid leave first, and a whole pay period did not have to be unpaid — the differential is worked out per pay period and adjusts for any hours you were actually paid. Whether anyone has a claim depends on their own orders, leave, and pay records.
For years the government said your service had to be substantively connected to a particular national emergency. In Feliciano v. Department of Transportation, decided April 30, 2025, the Supreme Court held that under the catchall in 10 U.S.C. § 101(a)(13)(B), service need only overlap in time with a declared national emergency. It did not decide the other eligibility, calculation, jurisdictional, defense, or remedy questions — so whether any agency owes you still depends on your own orders, leave status, and pay records.
USERRA generally sets no time limit for filing with the Board. 38 U.S.C. § 4327(b) provides that there is no limit on the period for filing a USERRA claim with the Merit Systems Protection Board. Even so, other deadlines, forums, prior proceedings, and defenses can affect an individual, and no period of recovery is guaranteed. Contacting us does not file or preserve anything, so it is worth getting advice promptly rather than waiting.
We are preparing a class appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board under 5 C.F.R. § 1201.27, and we want to hear from federal employees at any agency who were denied this pay. Nothing has been filed, and no class has been certified. The Board may deny class treatment or modify any proposed class. If class treatment is denied, affected individuals may have to file their own appeals — your claim does not automatically go forward just because someone else filed a proposed class appeal.
What it costs
Nothing to contact us, and nothing for our first look at your situation. If we represent you, it is on a contingency basis: no attorney’s fee unless we obtain a recovery for you. The firm advances case costs and expenses. If there is a recovery, those advanced costs are reimbursed out of it; if there is no recovery, you owe no fee and are not asked to repay advanced costs. Fees and costs are governed by a written agreement you review and sign, and any fee or cost award may be subject to review or approval by the Board.
Privacy
What we collect. The form asks for one thing: your email address, so that we can reply. It does not ask for your name — that comes back with the questionnaire we send you, if you choose to answer it. To help filter automated spam, the message we receive also records when the page loaded, when you submitted, and the country your connection came from. If you email or call us instead, we keep what you tell us.
How we use it. To evaluate and respond to your inquiry, send you our questionnaire, check for conflicts of interest, administer and secure our intake, meet our legal and professional obligations, and — if we later agree in writing — to represent you. We do not sell, rent, or trade your information, and we do not use it for unrelated marketing.
Who sees it. Lawyers and staff at Trial Lawyers for Justice, and the service providers that run our website and email or provide communications, security, and IT services. This site is hosted by Cloudflare, which processes requests and may log technical data such as IP address in delivering and protecting the site; form submissions are delivered to us through a third-party email delivery service; and page typefaces are loaded from Google Fonts. If a matter requires co-counsel or local counsel, information may be shared as permitted by law and the rules of professional conduct. We may also disclose information where required by law.
Tracking, and collection by others. This site sets no advertising cookies and runs no analytics or advertising trackers, and we do not use information collected here for cross-context behavioral advertising. Because your browser contacts them to load this page, Cloudflare and Google receive technical information such as your IP address, the page requested, and your browser type, and those providers may collect information about your online activity over time and across different websites under their own privacy notices. Google states that it does not use Google Fonts requests to build user profiles or for targeted advertising. The site does not change its behavior in response to browser “Do Not Track” signals.
Retention, your choices, and security. We keep what you send for as long as we need it to evaluate the matter, check conflicts, and meet our professional and recordkeeping obligations. You can ask us what we hold, ask us to correct or delete it, or ask us to stop contacting you — write to appeals@tl4j.com or call (866) 854-5529. We will honor the rights your state gives you, subject to our professional obligations, legal holds, and recordkeeping duties, which can require us to retain some records. The form is submitted over an encrypted connection, but no transmission is completely secure, which is why we ask you not to send sensitive records. This site is intended for adults.
If we change this notice we will update this page and the date here. Last updated July 24, 2026.