Running Successful and Legally Compliant Internships
Primer for Nonprofits on Paid Employees, Volunteers, and Interns
II-28 – The New Relaxed Intern Standard and Implications for Employers
Employment Law This Week®: DOL’s Association Health Plan Proposal, NJLAD Includes Nursing Mothers, New Unpaid Intern Test, HHS’s Conscience-Based Protections
Student and Alumni Litigation
Polsinelli Podcast - To Pay or Not to Pay? The Rules for Summer Interns in 2014
Unpaid Internships: Are They Legal?
Failed Unpaid Intern Class Action Hints at Impact of Comcast v. Behrend
The Third Circuit is expected to soon make a decision as to whether student-athletes can be considered university “employees” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). But its interpretation of the law might reverberate...more
A forensic photographer who enrolled in a county training program was an intern and not an employee, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held in a divided opinion. As a result, her minimum wage...more
On June 9, 2022, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided an unpaid intern who participated in a forensic photography training program was not entitled to wages under the Fair...more
Bond Labor and Employment attorney Seth F. Gilbertson offers suggestions on how employers can successfully operate an internship program that complies with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, New York State Minimum Wage Act...more
The questions and answers below highlight labor and employment topics as they relate to nonprofit organizations. Classifying Your Staff - What is the difference between a paid employee and an unpaid volunteer? Under...more
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the world, an unlikely phenomenon swept the United States. While new terms like “social distancing” and “essential employees” suddenly became part of the common lexicon, a surprising phrase...more
The end of the school year is on the horizon for high school and college students. Along with catching up on sleep and enjoying a break from classes, many students will want to spend at least part of the summer working for...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Courts across the country have frequently weighed in on the unpaid interns/ trainees versus paid employee debate. Now, the 10th Circuit has jumped into the fray with a decision affirming that a massage...more
Once thought to be the next wave of wage-and-hour cases, suits involving interns and students have tended to founder because most training programs are intended to train rather than to provide employment....more
In the past we have focused a lot on volunteer labor. The fact that generally an individual cannot “volunteer” to work for a for-profit business. The days of unpaid internships where someone volunteers their time to gain...more
In January, the Department of Labor announced that it would use a new method to determine whether interns or students working for non-profit organizations should be paid under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The DOL’s new...more
Last month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals became the fourth appellate circuit to reject the Department of Labor’s six-part test for determining whether internships at for-profit companies must be paid. The DOL test...more
The use of unpaid interns is a common practice across many industries, especially in the D.C. Metro area. And the question recently addressed by the Ninth Circuit is not a new one: under what set of circumstances does an...more
On January 5, 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued Fact Sheet #71, which sets forth new federal guidelines for determining whether an intern or student at a for-profit company must be paid under...more
As part of its revision of Obama-era policies, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) recently announced a new test for assessing whether interns qualify as employees under the Federal Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The agency’s...more
Determining when an unpaid intern is really an employee has been a moving target for the last several years. However, on January 5, 2018, the Department of Labor announced that its Wage and Hour Division will now use the...more
Several former interns of the Hearst Corporation, one of the world’s largest magazine publishers, were just that: unpaid interns, not employees entitled to minimum wage or overtime under the FLSA, the Second Circuit has held....more
In late April each year, tens of millions of employees and millions of employers participate in Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day. Of course, the vast majority of the child participants are elementary school kids, or...more
Former cosmetology students are not employees entitled to pay under the FLSA and various state laws, the Seventh Circuit holds, rejecting the Department of Labor’s six-factor test but declining to adopt any bright-line test....more
Litigation Over Interns Dries Up Internship Opportunities - The natural and probable consequence of litigation over unpaid internships was that such opportunities would disappear because the risk of litigation for even...more
On October 16, 2015, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) concerning new rules for extending the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program for international students...more
We reported in July that the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (with jurisdiction over Connecticut, New York, and Vermont) laid out seven non-exhaustive factors as part of a "primary beneficiary" analysis for evaluating...more
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are probably familiar with the six-factor test that the U.S. Department of Labor uses to determine whether an intern should be considered an employee for purposes of the Fair...more
Blog readers who have been following the recent wave of wage and hour lawsuits by interns will recall that the Second Circuit, in a major decision issued in early July, held that the “primary beneficiary” test should govern...more
New Amendments Clarify California Paid Sick Leave - This month, the California Legislature enacted AB 304, an urgency measure that became effective on July 13 and provides much needed clarity on various aspects of...more