Last month, I had the pleasure of speaking to the Federal Bar Association about hot topics under the Americans with Disabilities Act with my blogging buddy Bill Goren, proprietor of the Understanding the ADA blog. If you haven’t visited Bill’s blog, you should — he covers all aspects of the ADA, including Titles II and III, as well as the employment provisions (Title I).

Here are four ADA (or ADA-related) areas that employers need to watch in the coming year:

(When I think out loud, beware.)

Ellen Kearns' discussion of last week's decision in Barbuto v. Advantage Sales and Marketing, in which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that employers may have to accommodate employees who use medical marijuana, got me thinking about whether we need to revisit some of our assumptions about marijuana in the ...

Constangy is #1 midsize law firm for women! Law360 has ranked us number one among law firms with 150-299 attorneys. Firms were not even eligible to be ranked if they didn't have at least 49 percent female attorneys, so we are the creme de la creme. Heather Owen, proprietor of FOCUS, our women's leadership blog, has more here.

Like no business I know . . . In our latest installment of ...

This should have been an open-and-shut case. For the employer, that is, not the employee.

Lufkin Industries, Inc., had an employee, William Fisher, who was a 55-year-old African-American. One day, Mr. Fisher got into a verbal tiff with his 31-year-old white supervisor, and the supervisor called him "Boy." Mr. Fisher was offended and complained to the company's vice president of Human ...

The November-December edition of Constangy's Executive Labor Summary is out! David Phippen has a good one (does he ever have any other kind?), including the current status of the U.S. Department of Labor's overtime rule (sick) and the Persuader Rule (still a pulse, but death is imminent), Secretary Thomas Perez's run for chair of the Democratic National Convention, and some dude in ...

What effect are liberalized marijuana laws having on employer drug policies?

Maybe not as much as you'd think.

The Society for Human Resources Management just came out with a survey of employer marijuana policies in states that have legalized it in some degree. Here are some highlights from the SHRM study:

*Of 224 employers who have operations in jurisdictions that have legalized ...

In California, marijuana has gone from being an illegal drug to being big business.

Last week Governor Jerry Brown signed into law three pieces of legislation (AB 243, AB 266, and SB 643) aimed at regulating the $1.3 billion medical marijuana industry in the state. The legislation, collectively called the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, will take effect January 1, 2018 ...

Where are we these days with respect to mind-altering substances and the workplace? Here's the latest, with the "substances" discussed in alphabetical order. This blog post is guaranteed accurate™ for at least the next five minutes.

ALCOHOL. Alcohol is legal, which means that it is generally recognized as the most abused of substances. Employers can prohibit its use in the ...

As of this week, we have a new challenge to an employer based on medical marijuana – this time, in Rhode Island.

The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit alleging that Darlington Fabrics Corporation discriminated against a candidate for a paid intern position because the candidate, Christine Callaghan, disclosed that she used medical marijuana for her ...

As you all know, the Americans with Disabilities Act excludes "current users of illegal drugs" from protection. Meaning that an employer is free to take action against applicants or employees based on their current use of illegal drugs.

A question that has arisen a few times, and which I've managed to sidestep, has been this: What about current use of medical marijuana? Assuming the ...