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Employment Law

Review outsourced training to ensure it’s free of risky content

03/28/2025
As an HR professional, you know you must provide anti-harassment training. Otherwise, your employer faces potentially costly liability, because one of the key defenses against harassment lawsuits is the ability to prove you took reasonable steps to prevent harassment and put an end to it if it does occur.

How to prevent family caregiver bias claims

03/28/2025
While family caregiver discrimination is not a new protected category (and no federal law expressly prohibits employment discrimination against caregivers), the FMLA and the ADA specifically protect employees with caregiving responsibilities.

Never require work during military FMLA leave

03/24/2025
Employers may be tempted to push back against employees’ FMLA military caregiver leave rights, asking them to continue working when they can despite caring for their military family members. That’s an FMLA-interference lawsuit waiting to happen.

Gender pay gap narrows to 85%

03/24/2025
The pay gap between women and men is shrinking—slightly—according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Research Center.

Supreme Court hints it will set one standard for reverse-discrimination cases

03/21/2025
Ames v. Ohio is a reverse-discrimination case—one in which a member of a majority group claims that they were discriminated against because the employer favored a member of a minority group. What the Supreme Court will decide is whether majority group members must overcome additional obstacles before taking their discrimination cases to trial.

Employer’s ‘honest belief’ is enough for FMLA defense

03/19/2025
You are not liable if you fire an employee because you honestly but mistakenly believed they weren’t entitled to FMLA leave. The 4th Circuit said so and the Supreme Court affirmed the 4th Circuit’s decision by turning down the employee’s appeal.

Judge orders reinstatement of fired NLRB member, restoring quorum

03/17/2025
A federal judge on March 6 ruled that President Trump acted unlawfully when he fired National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox in January. Judge Beryle Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered Wilcox’s reinstatement to the board, and she resumed her duties on March 10.

Executive order takes aim at law firm, targets DEI activities in legal industry

03/17/2025
The order ostensibly targets the firm’s hiring and promotion policies, which it characterizes as “blatant race-based and sex-based discrimination.”

Title alone doesn’t make ‘supervisor’ exempt from overtime

03/17/2025
It’s up to employers to make sure exempt employees perform the genuine duties of an exempt employee. Simply calling someone a manager, executive, professional or highly compensated worker isn’t enough. Their job as performed must meet the test, too.

A tale of two approaches to noncompete agreements

03/13/2025
Don’t overuse noncompetes just because you can. Tailor your agreements to what you actually need to protect.