The recently enacted Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (EFAA) represents one of the more impactful new laws affecting cases of workplace harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. Many employers historically force all new employees to agree to mandatory arbitration as a condition of accepting a job, then try to use that agreement to force workers’ claims of harassment into arbitration settings that the employers believed would be more advantageous to them. Now, with the EFAA in place, many workers harmed by sexual harassment can avoid that arbitrat ..read more

When someone with power over you in the workplace asks you to provide sexual favors in exchange for a workplace benefit (or threatens to punish you if you deny them sex,) that’s something the law calls “quid pro quo” sexual harassment. In New York City, workers are protected from this sort of dehumanizing misconduct by three laws: federal law’s Title VII, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. If you believe that you suffered this kind of harm on the job, you should reach out to an experienced New York sexual harassment lawyer to discuss your situation and ..read more

Here in New York City, victims of sexual harassment in the workplace may have multiple avenues for seeking justice. At the federal level, there’s Title VII. At the state level, there’s the New York State Human Rights Law and, for workers here in New York City, there’s the New York City Human Rights Law. These laws each have crucial distinguishing features, including different standards for establishing a claim. In other words, just because you don’t have a viable Title VII claim, that doesn’t mean you should just give up, as you may still have a potentially winning claim under other statutes ..read more

Sexual harassment has been a violation of New York City, New York State, and federal law for many years. However, recent developments in the law have given victims of sexual harassment more power than ever before. Many workers, whose cases in the past would have been forced into arbitration by their employers, can now successfully defeat that effort and continue to pursue relief in civil court. Whether you’re initially bringing a sexual harassment case, overcoming a mandatory arbitration agreement, or successfully securing compensation, representation from a skilled New York City sexual harass ..read more

In a case of illegal retaliation, one of the crucial elements is something the law calls a “causal connection,” which is the linkage between the illegal conduct and the harmful employment action that followed. One powerful way to establish a causal connection is something called “temporal proximity,” which means closeness in time. To establish the sort of close temporal proximity needed for a proper causal connection, you need clear evidence that closely ties your punishment to your protected activity. When it comes to collecting this evidence and presenting the necessary arguments to the cour ..read more

For some workers, sexual harassment is something that can force them to confront some difficult choices, like whether or not to leave their job. Even if you’ve decided to stay in your current workplace, it is important to contact a knowledgeable New York sexual harassment lawyer as soon as possible. The law erects some strict deadlines for taking action and failure to meet those deadlines potentially can have extremely harmful impacts. For some other workers, these deadlines may trigger a loss of certain older pieces of evidence. For others, though, the law may allow you to use older incidents ..read more

When you’ve been the target of sexual harassment at work, it may become necessary to seek relief through the legal system. Once you’ve decided to sue, your case can proceed in a variety of directions. Often, your employer will oppose you vigorously or will seek to settle. Sometimes, though, your employer won’t do anything at all. Just because your employer does nothing, success is not automatically yours. You still have procedural and evidentiary hurdles you must clear to get the compensation you deserve. An experienced New York sexual harassment lawyer can help you ensure you are doing everyt ..read more

Two well-known public figures in New York are in the news this month and, in each circumstance, the basis for their scandals relates back (at least in part) to their alleged actions at previous workplace holiday party events. These news stories are stark reminders of the fact that, while workplace holiday parties should be a joyous and celebratory time, they’re too often marred by employees who engage in sexual harassment and/or sexual assault. If that has happened to you, the law allows you to seek compensation, so you should promptly get in touch with an experienced New York City sexual hara ..read more

The phrase “holistic approach” is popular in many fields these days, from education to healthcare to business. The word holistic, according to the Oxford Dictionary, means “characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.” What does that have to do with employment law? More than you might think, especially if you have been the victim of a pervasively hostile work environment. A recent hostile work environment case from just to our north reinforces the rule that, in hostile work environment cases, the courts mus ..read more

Many studies agree that sexual harassment is a widespread problem in the restaurant industry. Last summer, around the same time that celebrity chef Mario Batali agreed to settle a case brought by the New York Attorney General, NPR reported that a 2021 study from Social Science Research Solutions found that 71% of female restaurant workers had experienced some degree of sexual harassment on the job. For female tipped workers, the number was even higher, at 76%. If you’ve endured harassment in your restaurant work, you don’t have to be quiet and tolerate it. Instead, you can take action by getti ..read more