Negative Performance Reviews: Legitimate Teaching Tools or Cover-Ups for Unlawful Actions or Intentions?

Negative performance reviews can either be legitimate teaching tools or they can be mere documents to support what a manager already plans to do.  In the plaintiff’s employment law world, we call the latter, “papering the file.”  And, oftentimes, managers unfairly paper an employee’s file when planning to …

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Our Associate, Kendra Kutko, was quoted in a great article by TheStreet.com entitled, “Unlimited Vacation Policies Are On The Rise: These Companies Aren’t Counting Your Days Off,”

She shares her expertise on vacation policies in the workplace and the new trend of unlimited vacation policies for employees.

For more from Kendra on unlimited vacation policies for employees, please visit her recent blog post:

Are …

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Notes for employees on what to do if you think you might be fired.
Sometimes, as a lawyer, it’s easy to get caught up in statutory language, burdens of proof, and legal frameworks. Today I want to take a step back from that and offer some thoughts on how to handle one of the most basic employment-related fears: What do I …

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How to care for yourself without derailing your career

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month the following is the first part of a three-part series regarding coping with a serious health condition, like cancer, in the workplace.

This first part deals with the immediate:  getting time off work for treatment without losing your job.

Oftentimes illnesses …

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LinkedIn, the business-oriented social networking giant, recently announced that as of November 1, 2015, it will offer its employees unlimited vacation time.  LinkedIn will join the ranks of other major employers including General Electric Co., Netflix, Virgin Group, and Groupon in adopting unlimited vacation policies, known in the human resources sphere as “discretionary time off” policies.

There is no federal or …

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How the Internet of Things May Shape Employment Practices in the Foreseeable Future

The Internet of Things (“IoT”) is the network of physical objects embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and connectivity to enable objects to exchange data with the operator and/or other connected devices.[i]  We may more commonly think of IoT as, say, the data collected and exchanged between your computers, smartphones, …

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Newly adopted SEC Rule to Create Transparency on Growing Pay Gap Between CEOs and Their Employees

On August 5, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) adopted a final rule that requires public companies to disclose the ratios of their CEOs’ compensation to the median compensation of their employees.  The new rule was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer …

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In the Absence of Federal Legislation for Sexual Orientation Discrimination, EEOC Steps Up

Many months ago, we heard something that surprised us – that the EEOC was interested in investigating charges of sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace.  We weren’t disappointed by this news (in fact, quite the opposite), but we were somewhat confused because the agency is charged with enforcing …

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Small Businesses Not Immune to Anti-Discrimination Laws: Employees Should Know Their Rights

In recent years, the number of small businesses has exploded.  There are an estimated 28 million small businesses currently in the U.S., increasing about 49% since 1982.[1]  Indeed, as of 2013, businesses employing less than 50 workers comprised about 96% of companies in the U.S.[2]  The obvious corollary to these figures is …

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Recent study by the NAACP shows that minority employees paid less than white counterparts

We are incredibly disappointed by recent research indicating that minority employees in the retail industry face significant disparities in terms of compensation and opportunities for advancement.  The study, conducted by the NAACP and Demos, a public policy organization, found that minority employees, including African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians make …

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