Unleash Your Inner Superhero! Triumph Over Emotional Hurdles
Legal Update and Educational Luncheon
Thursday, June 18, 2026: 10:45 am - 1:00 pm CT
** NEW LOCATION **
The Cascades Convention Center
Fairfield Inn & Suites
5909 Stone Creek Dr
The Colony, TX 75056
10:45 am to 11:00 am: Check-In
11:30 am to 1:00 pm Speaker Presentation
Presented by: Ashly Torian
In today’s high-pressure workplace, HR professionals are asked to lead with empathy, navigate emotional tension, and model resilience. This session introduces the Emotional Resolution (EmRes) Process—a proven method to regulate the nervous system in real time and eliminate disruptive emotional patterns at their root.
Participants will:
- Understand the neuroscience and physiology behind emotional triggers
- Learn the step-by-step EmRes technique and how to use it in the moment
- Explore how emotional integration improves decision-making, leadership presence, and relational trust
- Practice tools that empower personal clarity and strengthen workplace culture
Whether you’re supporting teams through change, guiding conflict resolution, or advancing psychological safety, this session offers practical, transformational tools to elevate your HR leadership from the inside out.
Ashly Torian is a speaker, author, coach, and corporate wellness strategist with over 35 years of experience guiding professionals into emotional clarity and aligned leadership. With a B.S. in Adult Corporate Fitness, she holds advanced certifications in Emotional Resolution through the Emotional Health Institute and Eating Psychology from the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. Her work is rooted in neuroscience, leadership psychology, and metaphysical insight—creating a multidimensional approach to transformation.
As a certified practitioner of the Self EmRes Method, Ashly is passionate about using this innovative emotional regulation process to help leaders dissolve reactive patterns and step into clarity. She facilitates workshops, retreats, and corporate programs that empower HR professionals to embody resilience, emotional intelligence, and purpose. Her signature tools—State Mapping and Heart Song—support participants in shifting emotional static and activating vibrant leadership. Ashly’s presence is both grounded and visionary, making her a catalyst for change in every space she enters.
Legal Update
Legal Presentation by John Hagan
Choosing the Right Employment-Law Defense Counsel
This 30-minute presentation gives HR professionals a practical, repeatable framework for one of the highest-leverage decisions their function makes: choosing the employment-law defense attorney who will represent the organization when a charge, demand letter, or lawsuit arrives. Rather than a legal lecture, it treats counsel selection as a risk-and-procurement decision HR owns—covering when to engage counsel, the four qualifications that actually predict a good defense (subject-matter depth, forum and agency fluency, strategic posture, and preventive capability), and the business terms that quietly shape the representation, including fee structures, EPLI panel-counsel dynamics, and conflicts of interest. It closes with concrete vetting tools—red flags to watch for and ten questions to ask on the first call—so attendees leave able to evaluate new counsel or pressure-test the firm they already use, ideally before a crisis forces the choice.
Five learning objectives
After this session, HR professionals will be able to:
- Recognize the trigger moments—demand letters, EEOC/TWC charges, serious internal investigations, RIFs, and high-risk terminations—where defense counsel should already be engaged, and act before the clock on deadlines like position statements starts to run.
- Evaluate counsel against the four qualifications that matter most, distinguishing genuine, recent, defense-side depth in a specific practice area from generalist breadth.
- Decode and negotiate the business terms of an engagement, including hourly versus flat and blended fee structures, written budgets and staffing plans, and how EPLI panel-counsel requirements and conflicts of interest affect their ability to choose.
- Conduct rigorous due diligence by asking for verifiable comparable outcomes, client references, budget-accuracy history, and real trial experience, while spotting red flags such as outcome guarantees or fee vagueness.
- Build a preventive, ongoing partnership with counsel—through handbook reviews, manager training, and an easy channel for quick questions—so that strong counsel selection reduces future claims rather than just reacting to them.
John is an HR lawyer who represents employers and HR professionals. He has been practicing for 25 years. He is both a counselor to HR professionals and trial lawyer who defends them. He is past president of DallasHR, Mid Cities HR and Collin County. He is presently serving as Vice President of Programs at NTSHRM. His wife is a big-time federal prosecutor, and both of their sons are Eagle Scouts.
This program will be submitted for 1.5 SHRM PDC. North Texas SHRM is recognized by SHRM to offer Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for the SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP. For more information, visit the SHRM certification website at www.shrmcertification.org.
This program will be submitted for 1.5 General recertification credit hours toward aPHR™, aPHRi™, PHR®, PHRca®, SPHR®, GPHR®, PHRi™, or SPHRi™ recertification through HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®).
North Texas SHRM is recognized by SHRM to offer Professional Development Credits (PDC) for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.
HR Certification Institute’s® (www.HRCI.org) official seal confirms that North Texas SHRM meets the criteria for pre-approved recertification credit(s) for any of HRCI’s eight credentials, including SPHR® and PHR®.
North Texas SHRM Policies and Procedures
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