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Teresa Lewi

Teresa Lewi represents and counsels companies on a wide range of federal, state, and local employment laws. She focuses her practice on trade secrets, non-competition, executive compensation, separation, employee mobility, discrimination, workplace privacy, and wage-and-hour issues.

Teresa represents clients in the life sciences, technology, financial services, sports, and entertainment industries. She has successfully tried cases in federal and state courts, and has resolved numerous disputes through alternative dispute resolution methods. In particular, Teresa has helped companies achieve highly favorable outcomes in high-stakes disputes over the protection of trade secrets and enforcement of agreements with employees. In addition, she defends companies against public accommodation and website accessibility claims under federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

Teresa also conducts specialized internal investigations and assessments designed to help companies protect their confidential information and trade secrets from employee misappropriation and cybersecurity incidents.

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As we discussed in a previous post, effective January 1, 2023, California employers must include pay scales in job postings, and a similar bill in New York was awaiting signature by Governor Kathy Hochul. The California Labor Commissioner has now issued guidance to assist employers in complying with the new law, and the New York State bill was signed into law on December 21, 2022 and is set to take effect on September 17, 2023.…

Continue Reading Update on California and New York Pay Transparency Laws

On January 5, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a groundbreaking proposed rule that would, if finalized:

  • prohibit most employers from entering into non-compete clauses with workers, including employees and individual independent contractors;
  • prohibit such employers from maintaining non-compete clauses with workers or representing to a worker that the worker is subject to a non-compete clause; and
  • require employers to rescind any existing non-compete clause with workers by the compliance date of the rule and notify the affected workers that their non-compete clause is no longer in effect.

The FTC’s notice of proposed rulemaking explains that the FTC considered possible limitations on the rule—such as excluding senior executives or highly paid employees from the ban—but it ultimately proposed a categorical ban on post-termination non-competes.  The only exception is for non-competes related to the sale of a business.  However, even this exception is unusually narrow: it would only apply to selling business owners who own at least 25% percent of the business being sold.  (The proposal also would not apply to most non-profits, certain financial institutions, common carriers, and others who are also outside the scope of FTC regulation.)…

Continue Reading FTC Proposes Rule to Ban Most Non-Competes

To promote pay transparency and equity, an increasing number of states and localities are requiring employers to disclose salary data in job advertisements or postings.  The trend started in Colorado in 2021, and now a number of other jurisdictions have followed suit, including New York City and the states of California and Washington.  The New York City law took effect on November 1, 2022, and the California and Washington laws go into effect on January 1, 2023.  Similar laws have recently been enacted in other areas as well, including Jersey City, New Jersey (effective June 15, 2022), the City of Ithaca, New York (effective September 1, 2022), and Westchester County, New York (effective November 6, 2022).

This post will provide an overview of the New York City, California, and Washington laws, and discuss steps that employers can take to comply with the new requirements.…

Continue Reading New Pay Transparency Laws Taking Effect

Starting November 1, 2022, New York City employers will be required to post salary ranges on advertisements for internal and external job listings. This new law, which amends Section 8-107 of the New York City Administrative Code, provides that it is an “unlawful discriminatory practice” for employers and employment agencies to list a job, promotion, or transfer opportunity in an advertisement without including the maximum and minimum salary range for the position.

After the City Council passed amendments on April 28, which were signed into law by Mayor Eric Adams on May 12, the New York City Commission on Human Rights (the “Commission”) published updated guidance for employers on the amended law.…

Continue Reading New York City’s Amended Salary Transparency Law to Take Effect on November 1

Pursuant to a new Order issued by New York City’s Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene, beginning December 27 workers in New York City who perform in-person work or interact with the public in the course of their work must provide proof of at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccination before entering the workplace.  Workers then have 45 days to show proof of their second dose if they received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.  The Order requires employers to exclude from the workplace any worker who has not provided proof of vaccination or been granted a religious or medical accommodation to the vaccine mandate, as well as workers who do not provide proof of a second Pfizer or Moderna dose within 45 days of submitting proof of the first dose.
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Continue Reading New York City Announces Workplace COVID-19 Vaccination Requirement

Effective March 29, 2021, California employers with more than 25 employees must provide up to 80 hours of paid sick leave for certain COVID-19-related reasons.  The new law, Senate Bill 95 (adding Labor Code Sections 248.2 and 248.3), is retroactive to sick leave taken beginning January 1, 2021.  The law will expire on September 30, 2021.

Last year, California enacted a COVID-19 paid sick leave law that applied to employers with 500 or more employees, and which expired on December 31, 2020.  The new California COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave law (“Supplemental Sick Leave”) requires any business with more than 25 employees to provide Supplemental Sick Leave that is in addition to paid sick leave that the employee is already entitled to under other applicable laws (or previously took under the prior California COVID-19 sick leave law).

Full-time employees are entitled to 80 hours of Supplemental Sick Leave, and part-time employees are entitled to an amount of leave that correlates with: (1) the number of hours the employee regularly works over a two-week period, or (2) if the employee works a variable number of hours, 14 times the average number of hours the employee worked each day in the six months preceding the date the employee took Supplemental Sick Leave.…

Continue Reading California Employers Required to Provide COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Leave, Retroactive to January 1, 2021

Effective March 12, 2021, all public and private employers in New York must provide each employee with up to four hours of paid leave to obtain a COVID-19 vaccine injection.  The new law, which took effect immediately after being signed by Governor Cuomo, adds a new Section 196-c to the New York Labor Law and Section 159-c to the New York Civil Service Law.

Employees are entitled to paid leave, at their regular rate of pay, for a “sufficient period of time, not to exceed four hours per vaccine injection,” unless the employee is entitled to receive a greater number of hours under an existing employer policy or collective bargaining agreement.  Accordingly, employees who must take two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine are entitled to take up to eight hours (i.e., four hours per injection) of leave.  The paid leave provision expires on December 31, 2022.…

Continue Reading New York Employers Now Required to Provide Paid Leave to Take COVID-19 Vaccine

Effective January 1, 2021, California employers will be required under Assembly Bill (AB) 685 to provide detailed notices to employees when there is a COVID-19 case in the workplace and to notify local public health departments of COVID-19 “outbreaks” in the workplace.  California employers should begin assessing their practices now to ensure that they will be ready to comply with AB 685 come January 1.

Below is a summary of the key requirements under AB 685 and recent California Department of Public Health (CDPH) guidance on AB 685, including FAQs and definitions.…

Continue Reading California’s AB 685 Expands Employers’ COVID-19 Notification Requirements, Effective January 1

New York State’s new paid sick leave law (“NYSSL”) took effect on September 30, 2020, requiring employers to allow employees to begin accruing paid sick leave benefits immediately.  Employees may use their accrued leave under the NYSSL starting January 1, 2021.  In response to its state law counterpart, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has signed into law certain amendments to the existing NYC Paid Safe and Sick Leave Law (“NYCPSL”), also known as the Earned Sick and Safe Time Act, to align the NYCPSL with the NYSSL.

As discussed below, the NYSSL and NYCPSL impose similar paid sick leave requirements on employers, though the amendments to the NYCPSL expand employers’ obligations and strengthen New York City’s enforcement mechanisms.…

Continue Reading New York Employees May Begin Using New Paid Sick Leave Benefits on January 1, 2021

California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed Senate Bill (SB) 1159, which adds COVID-19-related illness or death to the list of injuries covered under the state’s workers’ compensation program and creates new employer reporting responsibilities. The law codifies and extends Executive Order N-62-20, which was issued on May 6, 2020 and created a rebuttable presumption that employees with a COVID-19-related illness on or before July 5, 2020 contracted the virus at work and were eligible for workers’ compensation. The new law is retroactive to July 6, 2020 and expires on January 1, 2023.

Disputable Presumption for COVID-19 Cases During Workplace “Outbreaks”

Workers’ compensation generally provides benefits for employees who are injured or become ill in the course of their employment. Given the wide reach of COVID-19, however, it may be difficult to identify where the employee was exposed to the coronavirus for the purposes of showing that their exposure was caused by and arose out of their employment. In California, however, SB 1159 creates a “disputable presumption” that a COVID-19-related illness arose out of and in the course of employment, and is thus compensable, for employees who test positive during a COVID-19 “outbreak” at the employee’s “specific place of employment,” and whose employer has five or more employees. The new law specifies that workers’ compensation awarded for COVID-19 claims includes “full hospital, surgical, medical treatment, disability indemnity, and death benefits.”…

Continue Reading New California COVID-19 Workers’ Comp Bill Creates Disputable Presumption and New Reporting Requirements