Meeting Information
Employment Law Update
Date:
Tuesday January 4, 2022
Time:
8:30am - 10:00am US/Pacific GMT-8:00
Location:
ZOOM MEETING

TIME ZONE: US PST

You must register on The FENG website by the day before the meeting, noon, to receive the Zoom instructions.

You will be sent the Zoom link at approximately 5:00 p.m. the day before the meeting.

If you miss the deadline or do not receive the link (make sure you check your SPAM folder), please contact:

Dan Ruchman
San Diego Chapter Chair
[email protected]
Directions:

Meeting capacity:

300

Suggested Donation:

Agenda:

Topic: Employment Law Update

Speaker: Tom Daugherty, Employment Law Partner at Klinedinst PC 

Presentation:

In many areas of law, and employment law in particular, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Seemingly small violations can quickly turn into major headaches, including individual litigation and class action lawsuits.

This is a big issue in California.  We have, by far, the largest population of any American state, with that population now at almost 40 million. California also has labor laws that are among the most employee-friendly in the country, which is a factor in drawing people to the state which, in turn, provides a vibrant labor pool supporting the growth of the thousands of established and startup companies residing in the state.  But those same realities make it a challenge to employers.

This subject is vitally important for financial execs, especially those who may have direct responsibility for human resource management, those who have any responsibility for the corporate culture, or those who are outside of the corporate world doing consulting or contract work.

This presentation will discuss how understanding California’s employment laws, as well as the surrounding federal laws, and implementing good employment policies and practices, can make your employees happy, dedicated and loyal, and can grow your business.  We’ll also take a look at the other side of that coin — how a single disgruntled employee, and an employer’s non-compliance with the Labor Code, can turn into a class action lawsuit with damages in the millions, and can devastate a business, in terms of time, money, and company morale.

We will leave this talk with several key takeaways:
- Understanding where Covid-related mandates have come -- and where they may be going in the coming year.
- Complying with new annual antidiscrimination reporting -- and staying ahead of any resultant issues.
- Follow-up on California’s Dynamex case, the "ABC" test, the AB5 law, the replacement AB2257 -- has the head spinning stopped and the dust settled yet?
- The key areas in which my company may need to enhance its employee training, to avoid running afoul of the law.
- How taking preventive measures with good employment law policies and practices can save your company money -- and may save your company itself -- and develop happy and loyal employees

Because of the breadth and depth of our own members’ experience with various aspects of employment law, as well as that of some of our guests, we expect this to be a highly interactive presentation and discussion.  On the subject of guests, if you would like to invite your company's general counsel or head of HR to attend, please feel free to do so -- they could both benefit from the presentation and add to the discussion.

About our speaker:

Thomas Daugherty holds the distinction of being the only FENG speaker to be both a lawyer and a former professional actor.

Tom is a Shareholder in the well-known San Diego-based, west coast law firm of Klinedinst PC.  He represents employers in disputes with their employees.  He also provides employment counseling on a wide array of issues, from wage and hour practices to discrimination and retaliation protections, and he works with employers to craft employee handbooks, company policies, offer letters, and other employment-related agreements, including arbitration, severance, and non-disclosure agreements.  

Tom provides his clients with that "ounce of prevention" noted above, to prevent those minor corporate infractions from becoming major legal issues.  Tom’s work with his clients is focused on avoiding the big problems, and as such, he works with employers on best practices and on all aspects of multifaceted human resources issues, keeping clients up-to-date on new developments in both California and federal employment law.

Where litigation has been filed, Tom focuses his and his clients’ efforts on resolving cases early, prior to extensive and expensive discovery.  When cases cannot be resolved early in the process, he works with clients at each stage of the process to manage costs and expectations, and develop the best litigation strategy possible. He delivers legal excellence, and regularly resolves complex litigation through tough negotiations, mediation and dispositive motions.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Tom’s preparation for his legal career was not his legal studies, but the things he did before he ever thought of law school.  He got his undergraduate degree in Fine Arts, with honors, from the University of Michigan, and then began a career in acting.  Being from Chicago, he worked for years as a stage actor, playing roles in regional and Chicago-area theatres, as well as on national tours. He performed at the Kennedy Center, the Goodman Theatre, and Chicago Shakespeare, among others, and was an active member of Actors’ Equity Association, the stage actors’ union.  When Tom decided to hang up his costumes for good, and focus his efforts instead on going to law school (JD cum laude from Loyola University School of Law), becoming a lawyer and making the world a better place, his years of experience on the stage gave him crucial aspects of the skill set needed to effectively appear on behalf of clients in a courtroom.

Today, Tom is a regular contributor to the Klinedinst Employment Group Newsletter, and has been featured in USLAW Magazine.  In his spare time, he enjoys running, soccer, the beach and -- surprise! -- the theatre.

To Attend:
Meetings are for members, prospective members and invited guests only. For non-members, RSVP is required by writing to chapter chair, Dan Ruchman at [email protected]. Please include a one or two sentence description of who you are, and your interest in attending the meeting. Thank you.

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CPE Credits: Reminder for those members maintaining their professional certifications - we offer the documentation for Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits for our speaker presentations. For those members interested in this, you may complete the appropriate forms, which we'll have available at the meeting, for 1.0 hours of CPE credit

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Zoom Screen: Make sure your First and Last Name appear on your screen.

For meeting information, please contact:

Dan Ruchman

(585) 721-7843
Attendees
37
Please login/register in order to RSVP and see the participants list.