OH has been headhunted and offered a job (pending H1b visa transfer).

The contract offered is an 'at-will' one, which states that he can be fired at any time for no reason with or without notice.

The job is based in California and the salary is ridiculously high with a fat golden hello handshake thingy of an amount that makes my eyes water as well as a significant amount of equity (perhaps to gloss over the at will thing?)

I feel a bit sick ... but researching around on the ole Internet tells me that this is pretty normal here in the US.

Is it? Anyone know?

Sherbert Dip

It is in Texas.

Yes - extremely normal. In theory it is supposed to be advantageous to both parties. Your husband can leave any time he likes without giving notice. Pants of course. Especially when you are on a visa!

I was employed at-will on H1b for three employers in a row - then managed to find a more stable solution.

"At will" employement is definitely the norm.

That being said, everything is negotiable, so your husband might want to consider trying to negotiate a guanteed severance package if his employment were to be terminated other than for cause within a certain period of time.

It's the norm in the US, every job I have ever had was at will employment. Only very specific things such as race are protected, so they can't fire your for those things but the list isn't very large.

Canada is a tad better, they can still fire you without much warning or reasoning, but they either have to give you x amount of weeks working notice, or pay you X amount of weeks severance. In BC anyhow, unless they have just cause then they owe you nothing.

One question: isn't he currently employed on an "at will" contract?

Nopes!

Are you sure?

And if so, how is his contract worded? ...... By way of comparison, I am employed "at will", but although there are some fluffy words in my contract around notice and severance, it doesn't alter the fact I am employed "at will".

California is definitely an at will state, so it's totally normal. That said, when I joined my company and had to do my management training, the guy running the course told us that even though it's an at will state, if your going to fire someone, do it in the first 90 days, because after that it becomes a lot more difficult.

Yep. We're currently going through the process with one of our employees, it's been 9 months now, and I'm still working through the process with HR.

What are the alternatives?

Union contracts. Tenure (certain jobs in academia and schools). .....

And this is cap-exempt? You know they can't promise an H-1B in the lottery, no matter how much money they want to throw at it...?

H1b transfers are not counted in the cap.

At will employment is the norm in the United States. I believe there is one state where it is not the default, but you probably wouldn't want to live there, anyway. As previously stated, there are many exceptions and complications, and it would be to a person's benefit to negotiate a severance package in advance.

This is probably know, but be aware: for an employment-based immigration issue, the client of the US attorney is the company, not the employe. While the attorney may be very helpful and informative when the employee has questions, the attorney's allegiance is owed to the company. If there are any questions at all, an employee should consult (and be prepared to pay) an experienced attorney at a different law firm. You can find many who will do telephone or remote consultations and take payment via various methods for the services.