FDRA is Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America, a trade association for the footwear industry. Did you mean FCRA, the Fair Credit Reporting Act? That's a law that regulates the use of personal information by companies. It applies mainly to credit bureaus, but I suppose it might have some provisions that apply to background checks.
I don't see the connection between the applicable law and how you report the lawsuit award on your tax return. It doesn't really matter what the legal basis of the lawsuit was. Maybe the law firm was trying to tell you that your lawsuit was not an unlawful discrimination claim. As we have discussed, there is a special tax provision for unlawful discrimination claims.
Your lawsuit cannot be an employee lawsuit because you are not an employee. You are a self-employed independent contractor. You are in business for yourself, and the lawsuit was a business matter.
In any case, you should go ahead and report the lawsuit income and the lawyer's fee on Schedule C as we have suggested, and stop trying to get tax advice from a law firm that doesn't specialize in taxes and "are limited on what tax info they can give." If you are really worried about it, go to a local tax professional of your own choosing.
