Wage and Hour Law

Home / Practices / Wage and Hour Law
All practices
Labor and EmploymentCompliance

Wage and hour compliance and defense covering FLSA and state law, including overtime, minimum wage, employee classification, and the collective actions those issues invite.

Wage and hour mistakes scale fast: one misclassified role or miscalculated overtime rule can turn into a class or collective action covering your entire workforce. We help employers get compliant with the Fair Labor Standards Act and state wage laws before that happens, and we defend the claims when they arrive. The advice is concrete enough to change how your payroll actually runs.

FLSA and State Compliance

The FLSA sets minimum wage, overtime, and recordkeeping rules, and many states layer stricter requirements on top. We review your pay practices against both, advise on overtime calculations, the regular rate, and compensable time questions like travel and donning and doffing, and help you fix gaps before they become liabilities that compound with every pay period.

Employee Classification

Classification drives most wage and hour exposure. We audit your exempt versus non-exempt designations under the FLSA's duties and salary tests, and assess independent contractor relationships against the standards that apply in your jurisdiction. Where a role is misclassified, we help you reclassify it cleanly and manage the transition without inviting the very claim you are trying to avoid.

Defending Wage Claims

When overtime, minimum wage, or off-the-clock claims hit, the stakes climb quickly under FLSA collective and state class procedures. We defend single-plaintiff cases and collective actions, fight conditional certification and decertification, and use your time and pay records to test the claims. We keep the strategy tied to your real exposure across the affected employee group.

Frequently asked questions

Exempt employees are excused from FLSA overtime and minimum-wage rules, but only if they meet both a salary test and a duties test for an exemption like executive, administrative, or professional. Non-exempt employees have to get at least minimum wage and overtime pay for every hour over 40 in a workweek. A high salary alone doesn't make someone exempt; the actual job duties have to qualify.

Overtime is 1.5 times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek, and the regular rate isn't just base pay. It also includes non-discretionary bonuses, commissions, and certain other compensation, which means a bonus can raise the overtime rate for the weeks it covers. Some states add daily overtime or use a different formula, so check the rules where the work is performed.

The frequent ones are classifying employees as exempt when they don't qualify, not paying for all hours worked (including pre- and post-shift tasks), taking improper deductions from pay, leaving bonuses or commissions out of the overtime rate, and missing state meal and rest break rules. Each of these can apply to a whole group of employees, which is what turns a small error into a collective action.

Federal law doesn't require meal or rest breaks, but many states do. California, for example, requires a 30-minute meal break and 10-minute rest breaks with specific timing, plus premium pay when you miss them. You have to comply with the rules in each state where your employees work, not just federal law.

Under the FLSA, an employee can recover the unpaid wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, along with their attorneys' fees. State law can add penalties, waiting-time penalties, and in some places treble damages. Because these claims can proceed as class or collective actions, one pay practice applied across a workforce can multiply the exposure quickly.

Our team

People in this practice

Document products

Related document products

Order attorney-drafted documents related to this practice.

Browse all products

Bring our wage and hour law team to your next matter.

Get in touch