Through years of experience, our lawyers have developed an approach to independent contractor compliance focused on crafting customized and sustainable solutions to help organizations continue to utilize independent contractors and at the same time minimize the likelihood of misclassification liability.
Our team members created a state-of-the-art process and methods that allow us to restructure, re-document and re-implement independent contractor relationships without altering a company’s business model or strategies. We generally avoid the use of one-size-fits-all agreements that tend generally to be ill-fitting for most companies.
The tests for independent contractor status vary widely from state to state and at the federal level, and currently are in flux. Laws in some states require creative means to elevate compliance, including ways to counteract new approaches used by class action lawyers to challenge independent contractor business models, such as the joint employer doctrine.
Part of our client service in this area of the law involves the drafting of arbitration provisions with class and collective action waivers. This focus is intended to minimize legal costs for businesses that may be targeted by one or more workers wishing to serve as class action representatives in a legal challenge. We also offer management training to clients so that they can better implement the solutions they adopt to minimize misclassification liability.
Many of our independent contractor compliance team members are litigators deeply experienced in defending organizations, both large and small, facing independent contractor misclassification claims brought in judicial or administrative proceedings, audits by governmental agencies including the IRS, and private class and collective actions in court.
Plaintiffs asserting these claims invoke an array of federal and state laws covering overtime and minimum wage, expense reimbursement, employee benefits, criminal background checks, and wage payment and wage notice laws. Our approach to defending misclassification cases is to deploy many of the same tools we use to enhance compliance, reformulated to maximize success in the litigation arena.
Independent contractor misclassification cases oftentimes arise in the context of claims for unemployment compensation and workers’ compensation benefits. State workforce agencies have been extremely aggressive in seeking to turn a single claim for benefits into audits or mini-class actions where decisions as to one claimant can be applied to all similarly situated workers. For this reason alone, many of our clients ask us to vigorously defend these claims, and we have done so effectively before workforce agencies around the country.
