If your employee isn't a professional driver but spends a lot of time on the road, how "essential" a job function is driving for ADA purposes? Is driving "essential" at all?

In what I consider to be a very significant result under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently ruled that driving might not be an ADA ...

NOTE (3/16/16): This post has been corrected since it was originally posted. 

President Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Judge Garland, age 63, had bipartisan support when he was nominated to the D.C. Circuit (in 1995, by President ...

I don't know what to make of the study, conducted by business professors from the University of Michigan and Temple University, that purports to find a negative correlation between political conservatism among some law firm partners and the advancement of the careers of female attorneys in reporting to those same partners.

To put that in plainer English: According to this study

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released a nice little "fact sheet" this week for small businesses, summarizing their obligations under the laws that the EEOC enforces. Here's a link.

Just be aware that "sex," in the EEOC's opinion, includes sexual orientation and gender identity.

(No jokes about small hands or "little" presidential candidates

Our Winston-Salem, North Carolina, office will be celebrating its 25th anniversary this evening (we actually opened on February 8, 1991, but we're celebrating tonight). Neil Wasser, chair of our Executive Committee, is coming in from Atlanta to join us for dinner. I can't let the day pass without wishing a very happy silver anniversary to my Winston-Salem colleagues:

Our fearless ...

"The boss is a jerk. I dread coming to work every day. I'm treated unfairly. Everyone else gets better treatment than I do. My pay stinks, and my company's paid-time-off policy leaves much to be desired. I should sue!"

The Daily Mail had an article this week about "the moment [employees] started hating their jobs," based on a Reddit discussion thread entitled "What work ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed today two lawsuits contending that employers' alleged discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation violates the Title VII ban on sex discrimination. One suit was filed on behalf of a gay call center employee in Pennsylvania, and the other was filed on behalf of a lesbian forklift operator in Maryland.

Here is the ...

I have recommended on this blog and in harassment training that "operations" people (in other words, people who aren't in Human Resources or lawyers) avoid the temptation to investigate workplace harassment complaints on their own.

A commenter asked me last week why I said this. I thanked her for giving me the inspiration for a blog post.

Believe me, I do not think operations ...

How many stars would you give Yelp as an employer? Read on!

I'm sure you've all heard by now about Talia Ben-Ora, the Yelp employee who was trying to live in the San Francisco area working as a minimum-wage customer support employee. She wrote an open letter to the CEO about how her pay did not cover her living expenses - and then she got fired.

Yelp denies that she was fired because of her ...

UPDATE (2/26/16): Cara Crotty's full analysis of the proposed rule -- plus video! -- is here. Read Cara instead of me.

The U.S. Department of Labor released today a proposed rule that would require federal contractors to provide at least seven paid sick days per year to their employees. The leave could be used for the employee's own illness, or for family care.

The proposed rule, which ...