Practice Areas

Kristine Sova provides an array of labor and employment legal services in a variety of industries across both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Her labor and employment legal services are listed below. Click any section to read more.

Three Reasons Your Organization Needs Job Descriptions

Much like employee handbooks, federal and state laws do not require employers to have job descriptions for their employees.  That being said, there are a number of practical and legal benefits to having them, provided they are well-drafted.  Here, we’ll discuss three good reasons for your organization to have written job descriptions. Performance Management Written … Read more

New York’s Increasing Expansion of Member and Shareholder Liability for Unpaid Wages

Wage theft prevention remains a priority in New York so much so that, in recent years, the state has incrementally expanded the personal liability of LLC members and corporate shareholders for the unpaid wages due their organization’s employees. Early last year, Section 609 of New York’s Limited Liability Company Law was amended with the addition … Read more

Three Common Ways Employers Violate Wage-Hour Laws

Employers often run afoul of wage-hour laws in similar ways, three of which are discussed below.  Luckily, these errors can often be remedied, in a prospective manner, through a simple change in policy or practice. Refusing to Pay for Unauthorized Overtime Many employers require employees to seek approval before working overtime.  While that is an … Read more

New York Employers Take Note: “Primary Beneficiary Test” to Determine Whether Interns Should Be Paid Under the FLSA

On July 2, 2015, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals answered the question: “[W]hen is an unpaid intern entitled to compensation under the FLSA?”  The question was a matter of first impression in the circuit, and the decision was a long-awaited one, because it addressed a question left unresolved since 2013 when two New York … Read more

Joint Employers and Overtime Pay

If a non-exempt employee works part time for two separate, but related, employers in the same workweek, such that the employee works 20 hours per week in one company and 25 hours per week in the other company, is the employee legally entitled to overtime pay because he is working more than 40 hours per … Read more

More Myths About Hiring Independent Contractors

In a prior post titled Top Myths About Hiring Independent Contractors, we identified three common misconceptions about the use of independent contractors.  The absence of clear-cut rules about the kinds of workers who are and aren’t appropriately classified as independent contractors continues to result in the misclassification of independent contractors by employers.  Here, we identify three … Read more

Dos and Don’ts of Comp Time

If you’re a private employer and you allow employees to take compensatory (or comp) time, you might be making a big mistake. Comp time is when employers allow employees to bank overtime hours for use as vacation time or other paid time off at a later date instead of immediately paying the employee overtime for … Read more

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