What You Need to Know About Overtime Pay for 'White-Collar Employees'
November 01, 2003
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) exempts certain categories of "white-collar employees" from the overtime pay provisions of that statute. Unfortunately for employers, the correct application of those exemptions is difficult and often misunderstood. Even more unfortunate is that the consequences of even innocent mistakes can be extremely costly for employers. That situation has prompted demands for fundamental revisions of the regulations that the United States Department of Labor (DOL) promulgated decades ago to provide criteria for exempting white-collar employees from mandatory overtime pay. Regrettably, that sorely-needed reform appears to be hopelessly ensnarled in politics as the parties position themselves for next year's national election. This article will examine both the proposed changes to these regulations and what employers can do to help protect themselves until change is effectuated.
The Incredible Shrinking Privilege Strategies for Corporate Criminal Defense After the Thompson Memorandum
October 01, 2003
The headlines reporting multi-million dollar corporate guilty pleas often miss a point widely understood among white-collar practitioners: The driving force behind the corporate plea is often not the merits of the government's charge, but the corporation's need to reach a global settlement resolving administrative and criminal sanctions that could put the company out of business. Considering the role of prosecutorial discretion and the draconian consequences of a corporate conviction, corporations often have little choice but to plead guilty and cooperate with the government. Recently, the feds have raised the ante in this process by defining "cooperation" to include waiving the attorney-client privilege. Thus, corporations and counsel alike are forced into a Hobson's choice where at least partial waiver may be inevitable.
Comply or Die: Corporate Record Keeping in a Digital World
October 01, 2003
Although compliance is generally thought of in a regulatory sense, every corporation that could be involved in litigation needs to consider the implications of how and what information is stored. In a sense, heavily regulated industries such as health care, securities, banking, and commodities are in a better position since the specifics of record keeping are set out in great detail. All industries that interact with the government can assume that their time will come. Other corporations may not discover whether they are adequately preserving information until they are faced with a discovery request. In either event, failure to comply can have dire financial consequences.
New Effort on Talent Management
October 01, 2003
General counsel are increasingly recognizing the need not only to manage the talent within their departments, but also to develop and enhance the group and its individual lawyers. <BR>In this, the second article in a three-part series on talent management, we focus more closely on what innovative initiatives law departments are using to capitalize on existing capabilities and what steps some of them have taken to continually add to the effectiveness of team performance.
Do Your Discrimination Policies Go Far Enough?
October 01, 2003
In the years since <i>Farragher</i> and <i>Ellerth</i>, numerous courts have been asked to decide whether or not constructive discharge (<i>ie</i>, the employee felt forced to resign because conditions were unbearable) is a tangible job action negating the employer's ability to raise the affirmative defense. The decided cases have had differing outcomes.
Do You Know Who Your 'Supervisors' Are?
October 01, 2003
As distinguished from cases of supervisory harassment, an employer may not be held liable for a sexually hostile environment created by a victim's co-worker unless the employer knew or should have known about the sexual harassment and failed to take appropriate corrective action. Accordingly, in assessing the potential for employer liability it is important to determine, in the first instance, whether the alleged harasser is properly classified as a supervisor or a co-worker for Title VII purposes.
Hotline
September 22, 2003
Recent developments of interest to corporate counsel.
The Critical Crossroads Of Corporate America
September 22, 2003
The general counsel function is the critical crossroads of corporate America. Even the most skeptical of senior managers and board members evince a growing awareness that the role of the general counsel is crucial and strategic, and not merely technical and subordinate. The question, however, is whether this crossroads can bear the increasing volume and weight of the traffic coming its way.
