Labor / Employment

Want to Get Hired? Just Take Off Your Shirt!

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When it comes to employment-related lawsuits, we’ve seen some pretty wild allegations. In the past several years, a handful of women have alleged that they were terminated because they were simply “too hot.” While Debrahlee Lorenzana was told allegedly that she had to stop wearing sexy clothing because it distracted her coworkers, Lauren Odes was allegedly told that her breasts were “too large,” and that she needed to put on more clothing to cover them.

Being told to change your style of dress or put on more clothing to keep your job is one thing, but what about stripping out of your clothing just to get hired? That would be normal for a strip club, but unfortunately, the plaintiff in this case wasn’t trying to bump and grind on a greased-up pole….

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The FDA Should Probably Leave Spying to, You Know, Real Spies

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The FDA's central office?

Forget the vast right-wing conspiracy. Forget the secret Communists hiding out in America. Over the weekend, the New York Times unleashed a massive article blowing the lid off the scariest conspiracy of them all: the secret Food and Drug Administration surveillance conspiracy.

Apparently, the FDA has been spying on some of its scientists, seeking out “enemies” of the agency, reading scientists’ private correspondence with everyone from journalists to attorneys to Barack Obama, taking screenshots of their personal computers, and more. The agency is facing accusations of privacy and whistleblower violations, and the scandal is so absurd that one senator has called the FDA the Gestapo.

Extra, extra, read all about it…

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Accountant Claims Wrongful Termination Essentially Because Her Job Was Too Hard

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Aww... does your head hurt? Maybe you'd feel better if you DID YOUR FREAKING JOB!

This has been one hell of a day for ridiculous lawsuits. We’ve already dealt with Octomoms turned strippers and thick girls who want to go to law school. Now we’ve got an office worker who claims that the pressure of her job led to her heart condition.

Accountant Tammy Armstrong is claiming wrongful termination and intentional infliction of emotional distress because her employer asked her to do a lot of work. She also wants to be paid overtime because her employer had the audacity to claim her as a salaried worker and then paid her a salary.

Basically, if she wins, then every single junior office worker in law or finance should be able to sue their employers. Which makes me think she’s not going to win…

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Inside Straight: Does Going In-House Ruin Your Skills?

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I’ve recently heard two seemingly related thoughts: (1) lawyers’ legal skills deteriorate when they go in-house and (2) this makes it harder to move back to a law firm.

I doubt that the difficulty in moving from an in-house job to a law firm (if that difficulty exists at all) has anything to do with one’s skills having deteriorated. Although one headhunter recently told me that it’s hard to go back to a firm after you cross the in-house Rubicon, he insisted that was because most in-house lawyers won’t naturally bring a book of business to the firm that hires them. (I stuck the qualifier “most” in there intentionally. Some in-house lawyers move to a firm, bring the corporation’s legal work with them, and do quite well. But that’s not the typical situation.) It’s no surprise that lawyers who bring clients with them find jobs more easily than lawyers who do not. In-house lawyers often can’t guarantee that business will travel with them, so it’s possible that in-house lawyers are less attractive candidates for firms.

But that’s not my main point today. I also don’t agree that moving in-house automatically causes a lawyer’s skills to deteriorate. How going in-house will affect your skills depends on the nature of your in-house position, how your corporation works, and what skills you’re thinking about . . .

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High-Profile Sex Discrimination Suit Shines Ugly Light on Silicon Valley ‘Bro Culture’

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Not cool, bro.

Californians tend to be quite protective of the state’s reputation as a progressive paradise. Where equality is important for everyone, no matter your race, gender, sexual orientation, whatever. Where organic food is simply better, no matter how much it costs. Where the earthquakes are a fine price to pay for an entire year of temperate weather.

So, when the New York Times ran an extensive article this weekend about an accomplished female attorney who sued the major venture capital firm where she is a partner for sex discrimination, it puts a real fly in the state’s — and specifically the tech industry’s — collective ointment.

The Times’s extensive story concerns Ellen Pao, a graduate of Harvard Law School and a former associate at Cravath. She has sued Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a major VC firm.

Let’s take a look at the specifics of the suit, as well as what it might mean for attorneys who work within the emerging “brogrammer” culture in Silicon Valley…

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Sports and the Law: Professor Edelman Weighs in on the New NFL Collusion Suit

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As many of you may know, on Wednesday May 23, the NFL Players Association filed suit against the 32 NFL teams in the case White v. National Football League, arguing that the NFL teams “engaged in a secret, recently-revealed collusive … agreement” to suppress player salaries and impose a $123 million salary cap for the uncapped 2010 season.  Last week, Elie Mystal shared his thoughts on the lawsuit.  Elie has since invited me to add some thoughts from a sports law perspective….

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Collusion And The Latest Attempt To See If The NFL Is Subject To Laws

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The National Football League seems to be an unstoppable force of nature, led by a commissioner, Roger Goodell, who has managed to collectively bargain his way into being judge, jury, and executioner of league policy. NFL players often have to go outside of league offices and to United States courts to have their grievances heard, except that the NFL is just as indomitable in court as it is everywhere else.

But if you are going to defeat the NFL in court, claiming collusion is a better bet than most. The NFL has been busted for it before. And it’s really not that hard to infer when 32 or so owners get together to make a market crushing deal….

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Dewey Have Any WARN Act Liability? Let’s Discuss

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This past Friday, we broke the news of the troubled Dewey & LeBoeuf law firm issuing WARN Act notice to its employees. This federal law generally requires an employer “to provide notice 60 days in advance of covered plant closings and covered mass layoffs.”

That was Friday, May 4. Earlier this week, Dewey informed many support staff members that their last day of work would be this Friday, May 11. It then informed many associates that their last day of work will be this coming Tuesday, May 15. Both staffers and associates will be paid through the 15th and will have health insurance through May 31st.

My math skills have atrophied from disuse, but I am still capable of counting to 60. And it seems to me that Dewey did not provide its employees with 60 days notice of its mass layoffs.

So, Dewey have any WARN Act liability?

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Dewey Know When LeBoeuf Is Cooked? When Associates Are Laid Off En Masse

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Last night, when we reported the news of secretarial staff layoffs at Dewey & LeBoeuf, we mentioned a prediction of additional layoffs today — i.e., Tuesday — or later in the week. That prediction has already come to pass — like so many predictions about Dewey, sadly.

Last night, they came for the secretaries. This time, they’ve come for the associates….

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When Dewey WARN People?

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The U.S. employees of Dewey & LeBoeuf received a letter today that many of them have been expecting for a long time.

It was a note warning people to prepare for the worst. It was a letter finally admitting to firm employees that “it is possible that adverse developments could ultimately result in the closure of the firm.”

So, now we’re on notice…

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