Well, maybe not light reading, but good reading about good news that you won't want to miss! Here are our bulletins and other publications from the last week, in case you missed them:

*Heather Owen is already shooting off Fourth of July fireworks at the FOCUS women's leadership blog because our firm was named this week by the National Law Journal as the fourth best law firm in the ...

I was on vacation last week, and so we have a lot of catching up to do. Here's what's been going on, from most to least recent:

*David Phippen has been keeping us up to date on the U.S. Department of Labor's Persuader Rule and what that will mean for employers. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Minnesota refused to preliminarily block enforcement of the rule. There are two other challenges ...

Just how much of a duty to conciliate does the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have after the Supreme Court's decision last year in Mach Mining

Hardly any, it appears.

In Mach Mining, the Supreme Court decided that courts did have the authority to review the agency's conciliation efforts (which caused employers to claim it as an "employer's victory") but said that the scope of ...

These will be really quick takes, since there are so many of them, on the proposed Enforcement Guidance on National Origin Discrimination issued this week by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (The actual document is 57 pages long, not counting the table of contents.)

I'll try to focus on the less obvious/more interesting points.

Take No. 1: "National ...

I admit it.  I have a crush on Justice Thomas.  Today’s unanimous Supreme Court opinion in CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC – holding that a merit-based dismissal is not necessary for a defendant to qualify as the “prevailing party” in a Title VII case – would make any employment defense lawyer’s heart skip a beat.

But the majority opinion is not what caused me to swoon. Justice ...

"Do this, don't do that, can't you read the rules . . ."*

Of course, the mega-topic this week was the U.S. Department of Labor's Final Rule on white-collar exemptions to the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Ellen Kearns, co-chair of our Wage and Hour Practice Group, wrote a great Client Bulletin on the Rule, taking a complex subject and explaining it in a pithy and ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission came out this week with a fact sheet dealing with leaves of absence and the Americans with Disabilities Act. First, I say kudos to the EEOC for again providing good, readable, not-overly-technical "preventive" guidance for employers. Second, let's see what you know about the EEOC's position on leaves and the ADA. (Answers are at the ...

The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter yesterday to Gov. Pat McCrory, giving him until Monday, May 9, to "confirm" that he does not plan to enforce the "bathroom" provisions of HB 2 as they apply to public agencies. If he fails to confirm, the DOJ is putting him on notice that he and the State of North Carolina are engaged in a "pattern or practice" of discrimination against ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has published a new Fact Sheet on LGBT discrimination that employers will find helpful. As I've reported before here and here, the agency is taking an aggressive position regarding coverage of LGBT issues under Title VII's sex discrimination provisions. The EEOC's fact sheet, as well as other materials linked in it, should answer most ...

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled this week that obesity is not a "disability" within the meaning of the Americans with Disabilities Act -- even as amended in 2009 -- unless the condition was caused by some underlying physiological disorder.

In addition, if the individual develops a medical condition because of the obesity (such as diabetes or ...