Jill Rosenberg, a New York employment law partner, is a nationally recognized employment litigator and counselor. Jill has significant experience defending and advising employers in discrimination, sexual harassment, whistleblowing, wrongful discharge, affirmative action, wage-and-hour and traditional labor matters. In recognition of Jill's practice, Chambers USA and Chambers Global awarded her a Band 1 ranking, with clients calling Jill "a terrific lawyer," noting her "stellar reputation for her representation of clients in employment litigation and internal investigations," and her "smart, responsive and practical approach to advice and litigation."
She handles complex individual cases, as well as class actions and systemic government investigations. She represents a broad range of companies, including employers in the securities industry, banks and financial institutions, accounting firms, law firms, and employers in the technology and media industries. Jill also has particular proficiency in the representation of nonprofit entities, including colleges, universities, hospitals, foundations and cultural institutions.
She designs and conducts training programs for clients and frequently speaks on employment law issues for employer and bar association groups such as National Employment Law Institute, Practising Law Institute, National Association of College and University Attorneys and the New York State Bar Association.
On June 29, 2015, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law the Fair Chance Act (the “Act”), which prohibits employers from inquiring into the criminal backgrounds of certain job applicants in the initial stages of the employment application process. You can read more about the Act here. The New York City Commission on Human Rights (the “Commission”), the agency charged with enforcement of the Act, recently issued “Legal Enforcement Guidance” (the “Guidance”) regarding the Act. As summarized below, the Guidance provides clarity regarding various aspects of the Act, including definitions of key terms, per se violations and exemptions from the Act.
On October 21, 2015, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a group of eight bills, referred to as the Women’s Equality Agenda, which expand protections for women in the workplace and elsewhere in New York State. The changes that will affect New York employers include an expansion of the existing State equal pay law, the addition of familial status as a protected category and the express requirement that employers reasonably accommodate pregnancy-related conditions.
With Governor Jerry Brown’s signature, California officially amended its equal pay legislation through the California Fair Pay Act (the Act) to include more employee-friendly provisions. The Act, which now creates the nation’s strongest equal pay protections, seeks to close the pay gap in California. The Act may serve as a model for legislation in other states and supporters are even hopeful the Act’s passage may finally push Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which has been introduced in Congress every year since 1994 and upon which California’s legislation was based.
In Cheeks v. Freeport Pancake House, Inc., the Second Circuit held that without the approval of a district court or the U.S. Department of Labor, parties cannot secure a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice of an FLSA claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii). In practice, this holding will prevent parties to an FLSA litigation – where there is a bona fide dispute as to liability – from reaching a privately negotiated settlement that includes a joint stipulation of dismissal of the case.
The Second Circuit revived an FLSA collective action filed by Michael Lola, an attorney licensed to practice law in California, who for fifteen months performed document review services for Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP (“Skadden”) though a staffing agency while living and working in North Carolina. Lola alleged that these services did not constitute the “practice of law,” and that he was therefore eligible for overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Rejecting Lola’s arguments, a Southern District of New York judge dismissed the complaint on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion on the grounds that Lola was exempt from overtime. However, the Second Circuit held that when accepting all of Lola’s allegations as true for purposes of a motion to dismiss, his work might not constitute the practice of law.
In its June 26 split decision in American Baptist Homes of the West d/b/a Piedmont Gardens and Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers- West, 362 N.L.R.B. No. 139 (Case No. 32-CA-063475) (“Piedmont Gardens”), the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) adopted a new standard for union access to employers’ witness statements in discipline cases. In so doing, the NLRB overruled the 37-year-old standard articulated in Anheuser- Busch, 237 NLRB 982 (1978), that provided a blanket exemption for the disclosure of witness statements. Instead of a blanket rule, the majority followed the Supreme Court’s 1979 decision in Detroit Edison v. NLRB, 440 U.S. 301 (1979), which requires a case-by-case balancing of the union’s need for the witness statements against the employer’s “legitimate and substantial confidentiality interests.”
In addressing a matter of first impression, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals set out a new standard to determine when an unpaid intern is deemed an employee for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and thus entitled to compensation, including minimum wage and overtime, under the FLSA. Two appeals were argued in tandem on this issue with the Second Circuit issuing an Opinion on July 2, 2015 in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc., and a Summary Order in Wang v. Hearst Corp.
After months of talk and speculation about new overtime regulations, on June 30, 2015, the United States Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued its proposed rule and request for comments on its “white collar exemption” regulations. The so-called “white collar exemptions” – the executive, administrative and professional employees exemptions – were last revised in August 2004. Assuming the regulations are revised in accordance with the DOL’s proposal, the DOL estimates that 4.6 million workers exempt under the current regulations would become entitled to overtime under the FLSA. In addition, an estimated 36,000 employees who were previously considered “highly compensated” employees under the FLSA would no longer satisfy that definition. READ MORE →
On June 10, 2015, the New York City Council passed the Fair Chance Act (the “Act”), which prohibits employers from inquiring into the criminal backgrounds of applicants in the initial stages of the employment application process. With the passage of the Act, which is expected to be signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City joins a large group of other states and municipalities in passing so-called “ban the box” legislation, which refers to laws that prohibit or restrict employers from asking about or relying upon criminal convictions and arrests or requiring employees to disclose their criminal history through a check box on an employment application. The ban the box legislation stems from the use of criminal history as an employment screening tool and from concerns that criminal history is often not a reliable indicator of job performance, and moreover, may adversely affect minority groups.
The U. S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled on April 29 that courts can review whether the EEOC has satisfied its obligation under Title VII to conciliate before running to court. Title VII dictates that when the EEOC believes that an employer has discriminated against its employees, it must attempt to “eliminate such alleged unlawful employment practice by informal methods of conference, conciliation and persuasion.” However, if the EEOC cannot obtain a conciliation agreement that “is acceptable to the Commission,” the EEOC may then bring a lawsuit. Up to now, there has been some debate as to what the EEOC needs to do to prove that it has cleared the conciliation hurdle before sprinting into litigation. In one of the most important labor and employment decisions of this term, the Court held that courts have limited authority to review the EEOC’s conciliation efforts, adopting a middle-ground position that “respects the expansive discretion that Title VII gives to the EEOC over the conciliation process, while still ensuring that the Commission follows the lead.” Mach Mining LLC v. EEOC, U.S., No. 13-1019, 4/29/15.
