Employment Law and Labour Law

The DOL's latest MHPAEA guidance provides plan sponsors with a practical roadmap for mental health parity compliance reviews, highlighting three key enforcement focus areas and identifying red flags in both written plan provisions and operational practices. While offering limited nonenforcement relief for certain portions of the 2024 Final Rule, the agency emphasizes continued enforcement of core statutory requirements...

On September 8, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued “Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2026-03” to clarify compliance with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) and nonquantitative treatment limitations (NQTL). Under the 2013 final rule implementing MHPAEA, health plans and issuers must use comparable processes, strategies, evidentiary standards, or other factors when applying NQTLs and they cannot apply such methods more stringently to benefits for mental health and substance use disorder (MH/SUD) compared to benefits for general medical and surgical care. While the bulletin doesn’t break much new ground on compliance, it does reaffirm existing enforcement priorities and expectations.

The EPA has released its draft risk evaluation for ethylene dibromide under TSCA, identifying unreasonable risks to workers and occupational non-users from inhalation and dermal exposure across ten conditions of use. With a February 2027 court-ordered deadline looming, EPA must navigate public comments, peer review, and finalize the evaluation while broader questions remain about the agency's approach to assessing worker risks and coordinating with OSHA on risk management.

The parties had spent plenty of time talking about the law, the facts, and the value of the claims. In the end, what mattered most to the employee was hearing someone acknowledge that the situation had been handled poorly.

A federal court in Georgia granted conditional certification of an FLSA collective action involving mortgage underwriters who alleged they were misclassified as exempt employees and denied overtime pay. The decision underscores the lenient evidentiary standard applied at the conditional certification stage and highlights the risks employers face when classifying employees under the FLSA's administrative exemption without demonstrating meaningful discretion in job duties.

A practice that millions of California workers encounter every pay period — having their clock-in and clock-out times rounded to the nearest few minutes — may soon be declared unlawful.

New York State has enacted sweeping changes to employee personnel record requirements, mandating that employers provide free access to personnel files, notify employees of negative information within 10 days, and retain records for three years post-employment. These new obligations fundamentally reshape how New York employers must manage and maintain employee documentation.

On September 9, 2026, Governor Kathy Hochul signed Senate Bill S3460 (A.2107), creating for the first time a statewide right for New York employees and former employees to access...

On August 26, 2026, NLRB General Counsel Crystal S. Carey issued Memorandum GC 26-04, “Further Guidance Regarding General Counsel Priorities.” The memo is her second in as many months and reads like a punch list for reversing the Board’s Biden-era precedent. For employers, the headline is simple: nothing has changed yet, but a lot may be about to.

The traditional reception model assumed someone was physically present at a front desk. That structure is less practical for solo, virtual, hybrid, and small practices, where one person often wears every hat. Smaller firms are separating reception work from physical office presence, driven by operational necessity rather than enthusiasm for remote work itself.

A mid-sized manufacturing company facing financial turmoil after a private equity acquisition found itself struggling with employee turnover, delayed accounting, and unreliable financial reporting. When traditional support failed to deliver the hands-on assistance needed, a specialized advisory team stepped in to restore financial clarity and guide the business from crisis to profitability.

Peyton Recer, a summer associate in Foley's Tampa office, shares her journey from earning degrees at the University of Florida to attending University of Miami School of Law. She discusses her approach to law school success, her summer associate experience, and offers valuable insights on networking and relationship building for aspiring legal professionals.