At a client seminar that my office presented during the very contentious 2016 campaign season, my law partner John Doyle delivered an introductory disclaimer. Although I may not have his words verbatim, I will never forget the message, which was as follows:

The only thing we’re partisan about is employers. That’s it.

It was a great way to dispel the perception that we were being politically partisan while we had to discuss the positive and negative impacts of the candidates’ proposals on employment law issues.

This morning, I got a comment from the plaintiff in an age discrimination lawsuit that I referenced last year, based on an article that had appeared in The Washington Post. Here’s what the plaintiff, Dale Kleber, said to me:

Well, Robin, I was surprised that although you have formal legal training, the article you wrote contains so many factual assumptions that simply are false. I suspect that your firm primarily represents defendant employers and your “analysis” is tainted with the bias of economic self-interest. In the near future, I expect to obtain an objective review of my case from the the Seventh Circuit. Your article, devoid as it is of even the most basic factual or legal analysis is simply an editorial masquerading as a legal newsletter. But perhaps that is what your clients want to hear.

I admit I did not think Mr. Kleber was a victim of age discrimination based on the information in the WaPo article, and I admit that I said so. Reading between the lines on his comment, it appeared to me that he had lost his case (since he was hoping to be vindicated on appeal), but I read the court filings today and it’s more complicated than that. (I’ll have a separate blog post about the merits of Mr. Kleber’s lawsuit, which I think is pretty interesting.)

As far as writing “editorials” on this blog, I plead guilty. This ain’t, after all, The New York Times.

I also admit that I and my firm represent employers, and that we are always on the employers’ side.

But what I’d really like to talk about is what it means to be “on the employers’ side,” or, as John says, “partisan” on behalf of employers.

Patrick White, an attorney in the Cook County (Illinois) Public Defender’s Office, lost his claim that the county’s promotion process had an adverse impact on male attorneys. This judicial finding follows a jury verdict against the lawyer on his claims of disparate treatment discrimination.

Mr. White was a Grade III public defender, seeking a promotion to Grade IV. He contends ...

Two court decisions came out last week that ought to scare the heck out of employers.

Both involved employers who seem to have been aware of their legal obligations and tried to comply. The employers lost their cases because they either didn't go far enough, or didn't pay enough attention to "optics."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPwrodxghrw

I'd like to talk about each of these ...

Supreme Court agrees to review "travel ban" cases and partially stays injunctions on the ban pending a final decision. The Trump Administration won a partial victory this week when the U.S. Supreme Court decided that portions of the preliminary injunctions against the "travel ban" issued in March should be stayed. What that means is that the travel ban is now in effect for foreign ...

Did you know that May is Mental Health Awareness Month? (Neither did I, but I do now.) Our beloved blogger Mallory Schneider Ricci is back at FOCUS, our women's leadership blog, with a post about mental health issues that affect women -- and men -- in the legal profession, and what they can do to take care of themselves.

The March-April Executive Labor Summary is out! David Phippen

According to a news alert pop-up that I just received from The New York Times. (I can't find an article on the website, though - they may not have it yet. I will update.)

Here you go!

As we reported early this morning, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana that the prohibition in Title VII against discrimination based on “sex” encompasses discrimination based on sexual orientation. It is the first federal appellate court to do so, although recent decisions from other federal appeals ...

Two big developments of interest to employers:

The Senate Heath, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved the nomination of Alex Acosta, President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Labor, in a 12-11 straight party-line vote. This means that Mr. Acosta's nomination will be voted on by the full Senate. According to The Washington Post, no date has yet been set for the Senate vote.

Franchisors received some encouraging news this week from President Trump's Acting Solicitor General, Nicholas Geale. Mr. Geale says that he prefers not to bring enforcement actions based on a theory that franchisors and franchisees are "joint employers." He also said that he hopes the U.S. Department of Labor will focus on helping employers to comply with the law and less on ...

President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch is still looking good to me. I've now read his famous (among law nerds, anyway) concurrence in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, in which he criticizes the Chevron doctrine. (Judge Gorsuch also wrote the majority opinion in Gutierrez-Brizuela, but his concurrence starts at pdf page 15.)

The Chevron doctrine, from a 1984 U.S ...