Quick Hit: The U.S. Department of Labor has announced the recipients of the 2018 HIRE Vets Medallion Program Demonstration Award. The award recognizes employers who hire veterans and take efforts to establish employee development programs and veteran-specific benefits to improve their retention. The list of successful employers honored as the
Jurate Schwartz
Jurate Schwartz is a senior counsel in the Labor & Employment Law Department. She devotes her practice to counseling clients in employment matters, as well as representing employers in federal and state litigations, arbitrations and administrative proceedings.
Jurate’s practice includes providing advice on compliance with various laws affecting the workplace, including the FMLA, ADEA, Title VII, ADA, FLSA and similar state and local laws. She counsels clients on developing, implementing and enforcing personnel policies and procedures and reviewing and revising multi-state employee handbooks under federal, state and local laws. Jurate also advises clients on policy and training issues, including discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage and hour, employee classification, accomodation of religious beliefs, pregnancy and disability, and leaves of absence, including vacation and paid time off policies, multi-state paid sick and safe leave laws and paid family and medical leave laws. Jurate is experienced in conducting wage-and-hour audits under federal and state wage-hour laws and advising clients on classification issues. She also assists clients in drafting employment, independent contractor, consulting and separation agreements as well as various restrictive covenants.
In addition to counseling, Jurate litigates employment disputes of all types, including claims of employment discrimination, harassment, retaliation, whistleblowing, breach of contract, employment-related torts and claims under federal and state wage-and-hour laws. Jurate also assists clients in matters involving trade secrets and non-competes, as well as nonsolicitation, nondisclosure agreements and other restrictive covenants.
Jurate has been ranked by Chambers USA in Florida since 2012. One client comments, "I am a client with extremely high expectations and Proskauer never ceases to exceed them. Jurate has a perfectionist personality and that fits well with how we operate."
Jurate’s pro bono work includes service on the HR committee of a not-for-profit organization, the YMCA of South Palm Beach County, Florida, and assisting other not-for-profit organizations with employment matters, as well as her successful representation of an unaccompanied immigrant child in an asylum proceeding referred by the National Center for Refugee & Immigrant Children.
Trump Administration OFCCP Continues To Obtain Large Recoveries From Contractors in FY18
Quick Hit: Data released by OFCCP shows the agency obtained $16.4 million in monetary relief for roughly 12,000 class members in FY 2018. While that is a drop from the record year recovery of $23.9 million in FY 2017, it is much higher than $10.5 million obtained in FY 2016 and $6 million obtained in FY 2015. In addition, based on statements made by OFCCP Acting Director Craig Leen, FY 2019 could set new financial recovery records.