Delaware Employment Law Blog

Registration is now open for Young Conaway’s 2013 Annual Employment Law Seminar.  This year’s event will be held on May 9 at the Chase Center on the Riverfront.  We are looking forward to it and hope to see you there!

The details about the day-long program and online registration can be found at the event’s webpage here.

Can employers demand to see an employee's or applicant's social-networking profile? To learn the answer to that and related questions, I hope you will join us for a free 90-minute webinar on Thursday, July 12, from 3-4:30 p.m. EDT.

About the Webinar

Recent press reports indicate that many employers are beginning to require job applicants to disclose their login information and passwords in order to access Facebook accounts and other private information contained in various forms of social media. They are doing this in large part out of frustration due to resume fraud, an inability to obtain meaningful references, and concerns over allegations of negligent hiring. These practices raise a number of significant privacy concerns and legal issues. This session will provide a national perspective on issues including:

• Why employers are seeking to obtain this information
• A review of current federal and state laws triggered by these practices
• An overview of proposed federal legislation and state laws being considered around the country
• How this practice may affect your corporate culture and ability to recruit the best and brightest
• Alternative methods for obtaining meaningful applicant information

Speakers

This timely webinar is sponsored by Employment Law Alliance, the world's largest network of employer's lawyers, with members in all 50 states and 140 countries.  Young Conaway is a proud long-time member of the ELA.  I'm thrilled to be presenting on this topic again with Steve Hirschfeld, CEO of the ELA and Partner, Curiale Hirschfeld Kraemer LLP, San Francisco, CA.   Completing the line-up will be Angela Rud of Gray Plant Mooty, Minneapolis, MN, and Kara E. Shea, of Butler, Snow, O'Mara, Stevens & Cannada, PLLC, Nashville, TN.

Registration

Because of our affiliation with the ELA, we are able to offer this webinar to blog readers at no cost.  To register, visit the webinar's page on the ELA website and enter "Young Conaway" as the referring law firm. 

Feel free to share this invitation with as many of your colleagues as you want.  Since registration is per site, only one person needs to register if you will be in the same room listening together.  If you will be in different offices or locations, each person will need to register.  You will listen to the webinar and view the power point slides via your computer; please be sure you are able to do that (instructions for downloading the meeting software will be included in your registration confirmation).  A phone option will be available, but you will need to cover any related charges.

Recap

I hope you'll be able to join us on Thursday, July 12, 2012, at 3:00 p.m. Eastern for what is sure to be an informative webinar on a timely and important topic.

The Family and Medical Leave Act has been a part of the workplace for more than a decade, so it's gotten easier for HR to administer, right? Not so. Confusing regulations, coupled with numerous recent changes at both the legislative and regulatory levels and conflicting court decisions, ensure that FMLA continues to be one of the biggest compliance headaches for employers.

The FMLA Master Class can help you clarify the confusion surrounding the numerous legislative and regulatory changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act and get answers to all your FMLA questions at this advanced-level seminar just for Delaware employers.

Details:
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Holiday Inn Select -- Wilmington
630 Naamans Road
Claymont, DE 19703
302.792.2700

Seminar Fee:
Just $397 per person
Just $297 for each additional person from your organization

Visit HRhero.com to see the full agenda and to register.

Last week, I appeared on the The Proactive Employer, talking about all things workplace social media with host Stephanie Thomas, and fellow employment-law blogger, Jon Hyman of the Ohio Employers' Law Blog.  The 60-minutes was over before we knew it but, lucky for you, if you missed the live version, you can listen to a recording of the show by either streaming it from the Proactive Employer site, or by downloading it from iTunes. 

Jonathan T. Hyman of the Ohio Employer's Law Blog and I will be guests on this week's edition of The Proactive Employer podcast with Stephanie R. Thomas, Ph.D. Jon and I are not only friends from the employment-law blogosphere but we also collaborated on the book, Think Before You Click, Strategies for Manging Social Media in the Workplace, together. Jon served as editor and co-author and I wrote the chapter on the interplay between privacy and social media.

On the podcast, we'll be discussing some of the many issues relating to social media for employers, sharing tips on social-media policies, and offering suggestions on how to ensure employees are using social media safely. We'll also be fielding questions and comments from listeners.

The podcast airs live on Thursday, May 24, beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Time and will be available as a download therafter. I hope you can join us then!

Delaware employers, you've got less than a week to register for the year's most popular employment-law seminar. May 9 is just around the corner, but there is still time to register if you haven't already done so. We've already beat our previous records in number of attendees but there are still seats available.

We are very pleased to announce that Delaware PERB Executive Director Deborah Murray-Sheppard will be joining Bill Bowser, Scott Holt, and Mike Stafford, for the Public Sector Update.

The details, including how to register, are available on the Seminar Event webpage. We hope to see you there!

If you are a legal blawgger or considering the idea, you may want to consider attending an upcoming CLE hosted by the ABA titled, Is Your Legal Blog Compliant?

The 90-minute webinar will be held on April 24, 2012, beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Here's the description from the webinar registration page:

If your law firm has a blog and you have not paid attention to the matter of Hunter v. Virginia State Bar, you want to participate in this ethics CLE that addresses what amounts to a case of first impression in how blogs are interpreted under the Modern Rules of Professional Conduct.

Blogs have been around since the late 1990s, yet this recent cyberspace battle in Virginia is the first real challenge by a state bar to the often cloudy areas of interpretation. Is a blog advertising, marketing, editorial, personal, or business? Where does the First Amendment end and the Model Rules of Professional Conduct begin? Should a state bar look at a blog as marketing or something else?

This expert panel, including the plaintiff, Horace Hunter, features some of the profession's leading voices in the world of legal ethics, blogging, and first amendment issues. Get a grasp on the numerous ethics issues up for discussion when examining the use of blogs by lawyers ("blawgs") against the backdrop of state bar rules, ethics opinions, and court cases. Participation in social networking sites and its relationship to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct will also be discussed.

I am honored to be one of the presenters for this session, which certainly is of great interest to me and, I would imagine, to any of my fellow legal bloggers in the blawgosphere, as well. I hope you can join us!

Yes, it's time again for Young Conaway's Annual Employment Law Seminar!

This year, the seminar will be held on May 9 at the Chase Center on the Riverfront. You can download the seminar brochure (PDF) and register online on the seminar's event page on our firm's website.

We are very pleased to announce that our keynote speaker for this year's event will be William Kenan Torrans, Chief Investigator, Veterans' Employment and Training Service, U.S. Department of Labor. Mr. Torrans will be conduting a plenary session on what I believe is one of the most critical issues that will face employers in 2012--the application of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act (USERRA). USERRA's provisions are far reaching but many employers are unaware of the law's implications. As the number of military service members returning home continues to increase, so, too, do the number of complaints received by the Department of Labor. I am looking forward to what is sure to be an insightful presentation on an important subject.

Other topics and speakers include:

As previous attendees know, we believe that a healthy dose of fun is the best way to learn any subject (and especialy employment law). In previous years, some of us were brave enough to present our topics in the Pecha Kucha style. The sheer humiliation factor of that experience was enough to nearly bring down the house.

This year, we're ready to turn the tables a bit and put you in the limelight! Don't miss Employment Law Jeopardy, hosted by Bill Bowser, where brave volunteers can show just how closely they've being paying attention at these seminars over the years. It's an hour that is sure to be hilarious and educational for everyone.

We hope to see you on May 9!

DE SHRM’s annual conference is just around the corner.  For Delaware HR professionals, this is an event not to be missed.  Young Conaway is proud to be the Platinum Sponsor again this year.  Bill Bowser, Scott Holt, and Adria Martinelli will present the annual update, the always popular, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: Employment Law Update, on Tuesday, November 1 from 4:30 – 6:15 p.m.  And Mike Stafford and I will be presenting a session on Off-Duty Conduct, including medical marijuana use, social media, smoking and tobacco, and wellness, on Wednesday, November 2, from 10 – 11:15 a.m.

Registration is available on the DE SHRM website.  We hope to see you there!

Social-media policies are on the mind of employers everywhere. I taught my first social-media policy workshop in 2009 and have been talking about them ever since. It's only been in the last 12-18 months, though, that I've seen a real movement towards adopting and implementing social-media policies, as opposed to just talking about them.

In the coming months, I will be giving a number of presentations about social-media policies. I'll be speaking to the Virginia Bar Association's Labor & Employment Section's annual CLE in Richmond on May 5 and just outside of D.C. on May 12. Then I'll be back in Delaware on May 18 for a CLE hosted by the Delaware Bar Association's Technology and Corporate Counsel. At each of these seminars, I'll be talking about social-media policies.

Although not specific to policy drafting, I will also be speaking about the ethical issues relating to social media for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute on April 21 in Pittsburgh and on April 27 in Philadelphia.

Although the sessions listed above are for legal professionals, human-resource professionals will have their chance, too. On May 11, at Young Conaway's Annual Employment Law Seminar, which is not to be missed for Delaware employers, Bill Bowser and I will be giving an encore presentation of our popular social-media policy workshop. (If you haven't registered yet, do it now--it looks like the event will likely sell out this year). Then, this Fall, I'll be speaking again at both of M. Lee Smith's Advanced Employment Issues Symposiums. The first one is in October in Nashville, Tennessee; the second is in Las Vegas in November.

For the next several months, I'll be living and breathing (and talking a lot about) social-media policies. To make it a truly well-rounded experience, I'll also be writing about them here on the blog. Specifically, I'll be writing an extensive series of posts about the specific considerations that are involved in drafting a social-media policy. These posts will address the details of social-media policies, as opposed to the big-picture considerations that I have written about in the past. All of the posts in this series will be titled, "Drafting Considerations for Social-Media Policies," making them easy to identify.

Registration is now open for Young Conaway's 2011 Employment Law Seminar (PDF). It will be held at the Chase Center on the Riverfront in Wilmington, Delaware on May 11, 2011.  As in previous years, we have an outstanding line-up of topics and speakers scheduled.  The brochure has the full details but here's a quick preview:

• Year In Review:  Discussion of the key developments in the law that affect employers both locally and nationally.
• Looking Forward:  Pecha Kucha is back!  Attorneys keep it short and sweet as they present on upcoming issues to expect in the year ahead.

After the morning sessions, we are very pleased to welcome New Castle County Executive Paul Gregory Clark as this year's Keynote Speaker and to hear his thoughts on the County's recently promulgated $164 million operating plan.  Following lunch, attendees can attend the following break-out sessions:

• How to Comply with the New GINA Regulations
• Special Topics for the Public-Sector
• Health Care Reform: Where are we in 2011?
• New ADAAA Regulations
• Social-Media Policy Workshop

We look forward to seeing you on May 11 at the Annual Employment Law Seminar!

UPDATE: Both sessions are fully reserved. Thank you!

Bill Bowser and Molly DiBianca will be teaching a 3-hour workshop for private-sector employers on how to draft an effective social-media policy.  The workshop is being held at Young Conaway's Wilmington, Delaware offices.  The fee is only $25 per attendee but space is very limited, so don't wait to register. 

A more detailed description can be found in the flyer, linked here.   

On Wednesday, December 8, 2010, the EEOC will commemorate its 45th anniversary by hosting a public seminar discussing its continued efforts to eliminate workplace discrimination. The free event will be held at the National Constitution Center, Kirby Auditorium, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The theme of the program is "EEOC at 45: Charting a Path toward Equal Employment."  Current EEOC Chair Jacqueline A. Berrien, and former Chair William H. Brown, III, will participate in a discussion, "Reflections on the Past, Present and Future of the EEOC."  Scott F. Cooper will moderate a panel discussion "Charting a Path toward Equal Employment", featuring attorneys and stakeholders: Mark Dichter, Sidney Gold, Juan Laureda, Rosalyn O'Neale, Matt Rubin, and Patricia Folino.

To reserve a seat at this exciting commemoration, hosted by the Philadelphia Bar Association and the Philadelphia Federal Executive Board, please call 215-440-2671 or e-mail mary.tiernan@eeoc.gov.

I am excited to be presenting the upcoming audio conference, “The Attorney’s Guide to Going Paperless,” sponsored by National Business Institute.  This ninety-minute presentation will focus on the growing popularity of “going paperless,” why it’s so important in today’s technologically driven world, and the steps attorneys can take to make the transition from a world of print-outs and overflowing redwelds.  I will also be discussing the ethical and legal responsibilities that must be considered when transferring paper files onto computers, such as record-keeping laws and confidentiality concerns. 

The conference has been approved for 1.5 CLE credits in Delaware (other states may vary), and dial-in time is 2 p.m. EST.  Registration can be completed online .The cost is $189 for the first registrant and $179 for each additional registrant.

The Annual Women's Business Expo, held by New Castle County Delaware's Chamber of Commerce, will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. The Expo will feature over 100 exhibitors, workshops, an awards luncheon honoring businesswomen in New Castle County, and a keynote presentation by author Jen Groover, creator of the Butler Bag.

I will be co-presenting about ways that businesses can use social media from a legal perspective.

The Expo will be held at the University of Delaware. Full day admission for members is $55 ($75 for nonmembers), and you can register online at the New Castle County Chamber's website.