Accountants: Targeted for the Next Wave of Wage and Hour Litigation

The presentation slides of a recent Labor and Employment Practice webcast are available by contacting Bethany Shipman-Meyer at bshipman-meyer@morganlewis.com. This session on the next wave of wage and hour litigation was presented by Morgan Lewis attorneys Sari Alamuddin, Carrie Gonell, and Christopher Parlo.

Over the past several years, the plaintiffs' bar has targeted the retail, insurance, financial services, and pharmaceutical sectors with an onslaught of high-profile and high-stakes wage and hour litigation. Certain indicators show that the accounting profession may be next in line. A number of recent wage and hour lawsuits have alleged that employees in the accounting profession—both in accounting firms and in corporations that employ accounting professionals—have been misclassified as exempt employees, and therefore are entitled to overtime pay and other wage and hour law protections. Several of the top accounting firms have already been named as defendants in these lawsuits.

For the accounting profession, and companies with large accounting staffs, this begs the question: Which accounting employees, if any, are properly exempt from federal and state overtime regulations?

The interactive discussion focused on:

• An analysis of the applicable federal and state statues and regulations
• Recent developments in pending cases in the profession
• Key steps that accounting firms and corporate organizations with significant accounting departments should take to avoid future litigation and liability