Seyfarth Event

Feb 16, 2012

Seyfarth Shaw's 8th Annual Workplace Class Action Report: Looking Back at 2011 and Ahead to 2012

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Address

Webinar

Thursday February 16, 2012

1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Eastern
12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Central 
11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Mountain 
 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Mountain 

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Speakers: Gerald Maatman; Lorie Almon & Ian Morrison

In 2011, workplace class action and collective action filings rose on nearly every front, from claims of employment discrimination to Fair Labor Standards Act to ERISA to government enforcement actions, while the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) set a new record with nearly 100,000 new discrimination charge filings against employers. This significant rise in litigation filings played out against the backdrop of the U.S. Supreme Court’s seminal rulings in Dukes and Concepcion, which established new class certification standards and workplace arbitration defenses, and in turn, spawned the development of new defense strategies as employers began to formulate new defenses to complex litigation claims.  It was, by all accounts, a transformative year for employment-related class actions, and the aftershocks will be felt through 2012 and beyond.

For an interactive analysis of these decisions and emerging trends, please join us for an upcoming webinar offered in conjunction with the publication of our 8th Annual Workplace Class Action Report. The Report's author, partner Gerald L. Maatman, Jr., along with partners Lorie Almon and Ian Morrison, chairs of our class action groups, will cover a changed national landscape of “bet the company” employment disputes fueled by an aggressive plaintiffs’ bar and invigorated federal and state enforcement regimes. They will also provide insights on the new parameters for Rule 23 standards and workplace class arbitration defenses created by Dukes and Concepcion, and how employers can continue to prepare themselves for litigation in light of those decisions. Other significant developments to be addressed include:

  • The trend toward bigger and more complex cases, the higher settlement figures they are driving, and judicial acceptance of defense tactics to allow early case assessments of the validity of class theories.
     
  • The EEOC’s shifting focus from one-off cases toward the initiation and litigation of nationwide pattern or practice cases.
     
  • Expanding and intensified level of DOL enforcement, as well as likely impact of the  upcoming Supreme Court decision in Christopher et al v. SmithKlineBeecham.
     
  •  The evolving class certification theories being pursued by the plaintiffs' class action bar, and how corporations can assess their vulnerability and mitigate those potential exposures.