Since our inception more than 60 years ago, Vedder Price has maintained a strong and defined focus on labor and employment law—including a concentration on wage and hour compliance and class and collective action litigation defense.

You can expect to work with proactive, skilled attorneys representing a firm whose identity is historically tied to its labor and employment practice.

Results-oriented attorneys, focused on your objectives. Wage and hour compliance often presents options and choices that can benefit your business. We have deep experience in wage and hour compliance across federal, state and local laws across the United States, including California which imposes unique and strict obligations on employers. Clients rely on us to identify risks and mitigate against the possibility of litigation. Our goal is to ensure that your wage and hour policies and practices satisfy your business goals as well as fully comply with the law wherever you conduct business. We draft policies, practices and compensation plans to make that happen. 

The number of wage and hour lawsuits has substantially increased over the last decade, with verdicts and settlements routinely costing companies millions of dollars. If litigation involving wage and hour claims arises, we are well equipped to defend your company and win. Our litigators defend employers across the United States in actual or threatened litigation matters involving claims brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state or local wage and hour laws. We work closely with each client to customize our defense to satisfy business needs and objectives. We identify creative—and, often, novel—litigation strategies to defeat claims or efficiently resolve them to our clients’ satisfaction. For example, we have successfully eliminated class and collective claims and resolved matters on an individual basis.

Our attorneys regularly counsel on and can assist you with all aspects of wage and hour compliance, including the following:

• Classification of employees as exempt or nonexempt
• Classification of workers as “employees” versus “independent contractors”
• Overtime and minimum-wage compliance, including calculation of regular and overtime rates of pay and advising on when payments other than hourly wages must be included in the calculation
• Auditing of wage and hour policies and practices
• Determination of what constitutes “hours worked” versus noncompensable activities and de minimis amounts of time
• Recordkeeping compliance
• Wage and hour litigation defense